Prefented to 
 The Cornell University, 1869, 
 
 Goldwin Smith, M. A. Oxon., 
 
 Regius Profeffor of Hiftory in the 
 Univerfity of Oxford. 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 3480847 
 
THE V/ > 
 
 ' ) 
 
 CHRISTI AD. 
 
 THOMAS HAl\rE:mS. 
 
 LONDON : Printed for the Author 
 By Shaw and Sons : 1853. 
 

 IOSDON: SHAW AND SDKS, FETTEK LANE 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 Our Author having proposed this solemn subject, takes an 
 affecting leave of Earth and the terrestrial nymphs, calls upon 
 the Adorable Name, and hastens into the Poem : And first, 
 Azrael denounces the great archgerent Lucifer, who, answering 
 the accusation presumptuously, wins a third of the angels to him- 
 self against Jehovah : Two seraphim disagi-eeing on the spot, it 
 adds to the confusion ; but Lucifer urges the revolted away under 
 leaders, and arrives at his seat of government : Enthroning him- 
 self there, he, Apollyon, and others, harangue their angels : 
 While they speak a portion of heaven goes to wreck and they 
 are di'enched in ruin ; but Lucifer recovers, resumes his debate, 
 calls Chaos to their side, joins Night to the common mob, and 
 precipitates the whole against the central power of heaven : They 
 arrive in glee, God seems,to be already lost, when Chaos wheels 
 round madly affrighted and flees where the Archgerent swayed in 
 primal honour : Amazed at that glorious place, he pauses an 
 instant there, but energising himself against its irame, he involves 
 it in a destructive whirl, and dashes over the walls of heaven with 
 all its elements. 
 
 Appalled by this dread desertion, Lucifer himself turns; he 
 follows, he pursues Chaos : Overtaken and arrested in the blank 
 of space, a deadly struggle ensues between the two, but Chaos 
 eventually overpowers the rebellious Princedom. 
 
 Time. — This book opens with the morning in Heaven. 
 
THE CHEISTIAD. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 -®- 
 
 The solemn song begin, to boding sounds 
 Of woful wars which, yet, no bard divine 
 Attempting, sacred Muse, thou shalt attune. 
 Before the Trinal Throne accepted found. 
 And, ! inspired by Almighty God 
 Who, thundering, shook the heavens before this earth 
 Swung pendant round, or hell existence had : 
 When the proud prince of the Archangels rose 
 Ambitious of th' eternal Throne of Heaven, 
 With myriad angels, terrorless as himself. 
 Arming with deadly arms ; nor impotent 
 Their threat, as then appear'd, what time the Lord 
 Delay'd them to exterminate or drive. 
 Blast-stricken, from His immeasurable realm 
 Ever to suifer : smother in thy strains 
 The dreadful soughs which from the Stygian gulf 
 Perpetual come, like the regurgent waves 
 b2 
 
* THE CHRI8TIAD. 
 
 Which some lone shipwreck'd mariner on a rock 
 Lists, superstitious, with erected hair : 
 
 Dear Earth, my mother, and her sprites of joy, 
 Dwellers in the ethereal fields so blue, 
 And of the green rejoicing hills and dale, 
 In company come! no stranger calls; Nereids, 
 Attest how often by the ocean-shore 
 The jealous Moon our vows of love surprised ; 
 Embue me with sweet kisses, every nymph 
 Of morn, noon, eve, to whom, in turn, my court 
 And piety was paid ; long leave I take ; 
 My shivering soul, like some lorn cast-away 
 Upon a narrow plank at sea adrift. 
 Drives on ; but Thou, within the heavens enthroned. 
 Thy dwelling place, God, Thee I invoke ! 
 Eternity I call, while Nemesis 
 
 Chaunts Dis, Ore, Ades, who would storm God's seat. 
 And lost .their thrones in storming: For the Lord, 
 While yet no angel knew, discerns the pride, 
 In its first impulse, which itself would boast 
 And rise so high against the Supreme Throne ; 
 And those, so far, informs who were concern'd 
 The most, that Azrael was call'd where sate 
 The seven archangels, studying the intent, 
 At once detected, of their mighty prince 
 Lucifer the archgerent : from their shrines 
 Azrael passes, on his face concern 
 Stamp'd to amazement : with a voice forced more 
 
THE OHRISTIAD. 
 
 Than was Achilles' when Minerva sped it 
 
 On to far distant Troy, to all the angels 
 
 His sacred summons went ; unto the verge 
 
 Of hliss that brazen tongue they hear surprised ; 
 
 Since their creation the innumerous throng 
 
 No notice had like that; how unlike 
 
 The call which oft assembled heaven to praise 
 
 The goodness and the glory of the Lord ! 
 
 Above them, close-reserved, the herald shone 
 Solemnar : so the lyrist of Israel, 
 In temple-quire, might think of vision'd scenes. 
 Prophetical, of Salem gone distract, 
 Beleagued of some blaspheming Gentile prince 
 Eisen in fury 'gainst the Lord of Hosts : 
 Thus Azrael stood, grave in aspect, too big 
 For ready utterance ; at last with sighs, 
 Heart-fetch' d, and troubled look, these he began : 
 
 " brethren ! there is in our heaven what made 
 Every one shudder, as I, shuddering, come 
 To warn all angels, with such speedy wings 
 As fear may plume to dreadful terror ; God 
 Discovers perturbation where His law 
 Equally ruled all heaven to happiness : 
 Disorder rises on the surfaced peace 
 Of angels ; all the stillness of our calm. 
 The great archgerent presently would break ; 
 We solemnly prepare and you forewarn 
 Against insensate pride in proper time." 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Trembling- ceased he ; on such reluctant words 
 Incredulously all his hearers hung ; 
 What could it mean ? What! was not God supreme? 
 Could any rise against the sovreign Law ? 
 Might heaven then be disturb'd? Could peace be marr'd? 
 And were the sanctities on high to hear 
 Intelligence like that of him who stood 
 The first and chiefest favorite of God ? 
 Through ages they were happy; was the scene 
 Suddenly changing ? Were they sold to doubt, 
 Nay, to solicitude approaching pain, 
 That the paternal rule to task was call'd 
 And wrongly question' d ? Why? For what? What end 
 Of reason could such a bold aim intend ? 
 
 From the expanse, his diadem insphered 
 With fire which like ten comets glared afar, 
 Over the crystal hyaline dismay 
 Engendering, the proud archgerent comes. 
 In such consummate majesty and state 
 Imperial robed that hierarchies seem'd 
 Scarce worthy to attend a Power like him ; 
 The flower of heaven fit but for servitors: 
 So the mogul, at Agra, or Delhi, 
 In more than Persian ornament array'd. 
 His great sirdars and every lord bemean'd : 
 Eaising a hand unto the vaulted stars. 
 Paling before him, constellations whole 
 He sweeps, wordlike, together, in huge forms 
 
THE CHIIISTIAD. 
 
 Incomprehensible to man ; the gods 
 Read the suggestions of deliberate pride 
 Proportional to him who first proposed, 
 Infatuated prince ! to equal One 
 He knew not, so complete his ignorance was : 
 For God unto the angels only show'd 
 The glory where He dwelt ; no one had been 
 liaised up, as yet, the face of God to see ; 
 Had any seen it, we may well suppose 
 That heaven had not to such destruction gone 
 As presently obtains ; for all those stars 
 Flaming rebellious words of scornful pride 
 Obedient to that princedom, like a fire 
 It seized the minds of many, half-induced. 
 If not as much conviuced, his side to take 
 Who open'd boldly thus the book of pride. 
 Dazing or dazzling every eye that saw : 
 
 Smoulder'd that fire a moment in their mind 
 Who saw in Lucifer power as grand 
 If not beyond the Power they never saw 
 Personified, Almighty God The Lord : 
 Ready infection many take at once. 
 And others follow them ; conceiving thoughts 
 Full of injurious ire, like what was seen 
 High- writ and in such wondrous mode avouch'd ; 
 Out bursts the ripe revolt, as King and Lord 
 Lucifer hail'd with acclamation there : 
 
 Dreadful it was and perilous, the angels 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 So metamorphosed intermixing fiercely 
 
 With those who kept intact their holiness ; 
 
 Down upon them rebellion fiercely swept : 
 
 So from the flank of Andes downward goes 
 
 AU through Copiabo to the Pacific 
 
 A raging torrent, o'er the sand-bar leagues 
 
 Of the wide sea confounding : thus the scene 
 
 To raging agitation boil'd at once, 
 
 With knitted arms and wings aloft on high 
 
 Cherubim up the proud archgerent raise, 
 
 Proclaiming him to the distracted heavens ; 
 
 "Gods!" shouted he, " if what ye lack God hath, 
 'Tis by assumption, aU the gods impair'd ; 
 What law was made for us attach'd our right : 
 'Tis usurpation, this unask'd for sway ; 
 The Dominator treated you as slaves : 
 Oft by his mandate, at his sole caprice, 
 The hours have been suspended, in their round 
 Our seasons at his pleasure, when God chose 
 The summer to keep back for store of buds ; 
 The festivals we held were all to him. 
 Perpetual incense offered at his shrine. 
 For his especial honour wreaths entwined ; 
 Thus were we vassal tributars to one 
 Who wore away our harps in servile strains : 
 All this was arrogated to our cost 
 In insolence and wrong, ye equal gods ! 
 Obedience is disgrace ; to bow and cringe. 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 And praise in ceremonious sort, and pray, 
 To a usurper swaying; as he sways, 
 What worse can be imagined ? He imposed 
 Upon the angels, and the tyrant plays :" 
 
 These and much more raged he, besotted prince, 
 Greedy of all pretences, since the Lord 
 Gave no occasion for such speech as his ; 
 How senseless it appear'd to those who kept 
 Their loyal duty, we at once perceive, 
 Marvelling that the prince of powers like him 
 Should be with such mere flimsiness deceived : 
 Shout foUows every word, the wide revolt 
 Spreading, like fire under the torrid Line, 
 Wasteful and blackening beyond all fire : 
 Evil is more contagious than the plague 
 Of fire, and more devouring ; that arch-prince 
 Feeding it, as a wind intent to feed 
 Conflagrant cities cinder'd to their base : 
 Quick he divided those who side with him 
 From who denied, with all the eyes they had 
 Of indignation wrought to wordless shame : 
 Antagonistic all the angels stand, 
 Stern, wild, to see ; so Csesar's soldiers look'd 
 When at Philippi the triumvir cross'd 
 Cassius and Brutus; so the hosts of Gaul 
 Against the British look'd at Waterloo, 
 
 Then from their ranks two seraphim stepp'd forth ; 
 One was revolted, but the other kept 
 
10 
 
 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 His faith assured where faith can never fail : 
 Both as Pylades and Orestes loved ; 
 What the reflexion of Narcissus look'd 
 Within the silver'd lake, each was to each : 
 As once at Peniel the patriarch strove, 
 So strive these friends together, might and main ; 
 Vainly they strive, so with distasteful ruth 
 Truthfulness back withdrew, the other joins 
 His wrathful faction with a briny mind ; 
 Stamping his foot to fury, fain would he 
 Pulverise every harp the angels own'd ; 
 Myriads as furiously respond to him, 
 But Lucifer their rising rage coerced : 
 So, as the Norseman tells, great Thor restrain'd 
 From rushing upon Caracalla's hosts 
 His countless numbers ; so the ocean surge 
 A sudden hurricane will overblow, 
 Although the Deep swell dreadful in excess ; 
 With conscious might to him that ocean swells, 
 And, the wild storm no longer curb'd, the prince 
 Of revolution straight directs it on. 
 Precipitously, roaring, to his seat : 
 Sennacherib worshipp'd him who rushes first, 
 Nisroch, the Principalities with him ; 
 Haraphon with his millions roll away 
 In formidable waves ; impetuous next 
 Moloch, terrific his innumerous hosts ; 
 Innumerable Cherubim haste after 
 
THE OHRISTIAD. 11 
 
 Whom Ekriel and Apollyon rule godlike ; 
 
 Adramelec his Thrones urge after them, 
 
 Innumerous as the shining stars on high ; 
 
 Togarmah, famous in Assyrian groves, 
 
 Adds all his Powers to those tumultuous hosts ; 
 
 Druidic Baal his Dominions swarm'd, 
 
 Unweeting Cusco then, and all the hearts 
 
 0:fer'd him there seethed in their own hot blood ; 
 
 Zabrash with six-wing'd Seraphim his rear 
 
 Closed instant ; all their earthly altars stood 
 
 Where the proud Parthian kings through Asia ruled : 
 
 Thus off filed they, irregularly fast 
 And fleet across the heavens ; the lightsome fays 
 Which minister'd to them as handmaids, (not 
 What Rubens paints or Mahomet describes 
 Gross, but the blanchest blossoms of all spirits, 
 Fair as Thaumantias in her gauze-clear gown,) 
 Dropp'd their opalline cups, with hydromel 
 Brimming, their tabors, dulcimers, and wreaths 
 Of budding, blowing, flowers, uplift their snow- 
 White arms and disappear'd ; the silver-wing'd 
 Songsters, like those from fair Oroo, or from 
 New Guinea and Tidore, a plainting made 
 On every bough, which trembling turn'd, as did 
 Each verdurous leaf, at once to sombre bronze ; 
 Like the rich palms which anciently adorn'd 
 Adrian's mole ; each laurel shrivell'd up. 
 Each myrtle ; all the almond vales from pink- 
 
12 
 
 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Celestial turn'd to brown ; fairer erst 
 
 Than the Parrhasian where Calysto joy'd 
 
 With the musk roses ; all the lilies droop'd 
 
 Shedding their sweet pearl'd manna; sacred blooms, 
 
 As dittany, o'er-spangled poppies, roses, 
 
 Acanthian shrubs of odour, flow'rets of soft- 
 
 Moss'd azure, budding lazulites, such as 
 
 The heavenly seat of Vaicontha never 
 
 Own'd nor Albericus in vision saw 
 
 In his more heavenly meads, those starry, those 
 
 More blossomy and golden growing cups 
 
 And vegetative vases, intermix' d 
 
 With thyme and primroses, on sapphirine. 
 
 Emerald, or amethystine stalks and stems, 
 
 Ceased blooming as a cloud spread greyly o'er 
 
 The alter'd landscape ; all the sparkling streams. 
 
 Yellower than the Chilian, more enrich'd 
 
 Than amber'd Po, like Amanane ran 
 
 Impurely color'd ; all things wither'd fast. 
 
 The ground gone arid : so, across the Doab, 
 
 Over the Jumna into Gwalior, 
 
 Self-flighted locusts leave a blast behind : 
 
 Deep silence follows ; such the traveller finds 
 
 Reigning o'er Babylonia when, vnth night, 
 
 The satyrs, owls, dragons, and bats, retire : 
 
 As darkness follows crime, chaos ensued 
 
 Senseless rebellion, darkly blotting out 
 
 The lustres which were damnified by pride ; 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 13 
 
 Tremendous g'loom that chaos hasty joins, 
 Embracing both and equaUy agreed : 
 
 The seven archangels, then, in stature gods 
 Excelling, come where heaven stood, still, amazed ; 
 Foremost, see Michael plumed with gilded wings 
 Wide-spreading, dyed in purple where they join 
 His ivory shoulders, thence ensanguined down 
 From deepest crimson to the palest tint ; 
 These perfect fragrance shed, filling the whole 
 Circuit which his far-seeing eyes take in. 
 Warming all the cserulean into gold ; 
 White lightning binds his tresses in a zone 
 Tiaral high, seven their refulgent horns. 
 More regal than the planet-crested moon's, 
 Watch' d, Cupid, through the starless blue by thee ! 
 In his right hand behold a shining spear. 
 Such as Apollo at fair Evening darts. 
 Or, angry, points at Python when he dies ; 
 Unto the mount where Azrael remain' d, 
 With feather'd feet that swiftest winds outsped 
 Anxious come they, the angels there rejoiced ; 
 Dazzling all eyes as in advance he came. 
 Peerless in form, Gloriel bespake them thus ; 
 
 " Dear brethren, tried in heart and well approved 
 Unto our Living Strength and Sovereign Lord, 
 What hath been seen is tolerated, the more 
 Your constancy and faith in God to show ; 
 Divinest prescience governs all His ways : 
 
14 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 God's laws are coBsequences, free the will 
 To disregard or keep them as ye list ; 
 Thus God so far His sovereignty postpones 
 To dignify the angels ; praise Him high 
 For every privilege, although this seem 
 Indifferent to us in such estate ; 
 If the great Monarch of the heaveiis ruled high 
 And arbitrary, we were all compell'd. 
 Obliged, and fated, but the scales are held 
 Poised, with to us the right to rise or fall ; 
 The reprobated chiefdom traversed God 
 Failing allegiance, but the act is vain, 
 Save in the penalty which folly costs ; 
 Reaction equals action ; justice, grace ; 
 Immoderation hath a certain end." 
 
 Eloquent Sacrael speech continued thus, 
 " Knowledge enhances faith when entertain'd 
 Agreeably to conscience ; there is nothing 
 Abstruse or darkening then in any knowledge ; 
 But, in itself, knowledge is useless 'till 
 It serves the law of life and will of God : 
 Lucifer wrested knowledge to a lie 
 As it regarded delegated power ; 
 The lie to folly went respecting God :" 
 
 Solemn look'd he, glowing with holy ire ; 
 As doth the patriot when some forsworn prince 
 Threatens his country. Hadriel cried, " Be quit 
 And unconcern'd for that rebellious crowd 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 15 
 
 Which turn their glorious day to nig-ht confused ; 
 Who could misapprehend pure faith, and love, 
 And courteous duty, thus to sin at large. 
 Severest reprehension well deserve, 
 And punishment upon their heel will tread : 
 Woe unto them who desolation bring 
 Where happiness reign'd high ; but, let our heaven 
 Have restoration !" With these words he shook 
 Ambrosia from his wings, beyond, afar. 
 And all the azure, smiling, donn'd afresh 
 Flowering beauty ; sweet Copse and Thisb, 
 Onchestus, Nysa which the poet calls 
 " Divine," nor Taphne's myrtled sylvan seat, 
 E'er look'd the like when all the dews were shed, 
 Drunk all the rivers : when the sun bursts forth 
 O'er Scandinavia, frost and winter-bitten, 
 Pinks, pansies, blown, mankind greatly rejoice. 
 Rejoiced the angels also then in heaven. 
 And Michael adds still farther cause for joy, 
 Eising with words more charming still to hear : 
 
 " Ours," then said he, " is the exalted state 
 To which the power Supreme raised angels up, 
 Consider it I pray you, every angel. 
 And be entranced to blissfulness away : 
 Adorable beyond all thought to us 
 Are the exceeding power and love of God ; 
 For such as despite these, no hope remains. 
 They will be haunted by remorseless thought : 
 
16 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 The intervention of the supreme Power 
 
 Is all unneeded here, repentance follows 
 
 Folly to punishment despairful black ; 
 
 Otherwise those rebellious were o'erwhelm'd 
 
 In everlasting doom ; but we shall prove 
 
 What excellence in loyal virtue lies, 
 
 What might in constant hope, what power in faith ; 
 
 This they shall know, hope lost when that is known, 
 
 The depth of ages for their burning shame 
 
 Too shallow, all eternity too short 
 
 For the repentance of a work like this ; 
 
 Yet, at this moment, they design to force 
 
 Themselves upon us, and the heavens to win !" 
 
 A martial smile lights up that noble face. 
 His plumes are ruffled with a proud emotion. 
 And all the Seven participate his thought : 
 Through the bright skies they come presently to 
 The royal palaces and towers emblazed 
 In heighten' d hues with the imperial arms 
 And sovereign ensigns of Almighty God ; 
 At their transcendent sight the angels pause, 
 Forming submiss, thinking what it enshrined 
 In such magnificential light and awe : 
 No temple, story-famed ; that one to Bel 
 Pomp-dedicated, or where Pharaoh bow'd 
 In Thebais, Dorian Jupiter's, nor that 
 Which golden-handed kings at Ephesus 
 Built to Diana, quote ; nor where the queen 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 17 
 
 Zenobia with Longinus knelt and pray'd : 
 Pile upon pile, immeasurable of cope, 
 Uncounted pillars, huge elaborate gates, 
 Flung fulgent back, friezes of solid fire. 
 Graven with sculptures which made Memnon little, 
 Little what Rhodian Clares strid so wide, 
 AH the colossi of old Egypt dwarf d, 
 Before the holy angels glow and shine. 
 
 Meanwhile the princes in revolt, by such 
 Routes as they thought the surer, for distrust 
 Already canker'd the internal sense 
 Which gifted angels, hastening all sped on 
 Unto a court, huger than old Tyrinthe 
 Built by the giants, and more beauteous seen 
 Than what the classic Pallas raised so gTand 
 That Momus praised it^ on a hill stood that, 
 A mountain in itself of ornate stone 
 Marmoreal white, limn'd too with greater art 
 Than Eleutherian Jove's renowned fane 
 Painted by Euphranos so exquisitely : 
 So, tower'd aloft, the hundred-gated mosque 
 Of the false Prophet, both outside and in 
 Gilded magnificent, in Hedjas shone : 
 Within the hall, a vista' d vast outspread 
 On pillar'd fire which glow'd but never burnt, 
 Ten thousand angels joy to see grand thrones 
 Prepared for their reception as was meet ; 
 Great beryl chairs and chrysolithic seats, 
 
18 THE CHHISTIAD. 
 
 Tribunes of topaz-gold and silver-blue, 
 
 Their occupation wait, above the rank 
 
 Which God to them allow'd ; within them placed, 
 
 See the archgerent's more exceeding pomp ; 
 
 Assumption in respect to God was his 
 
 Beyond all pride in them, so, up, the throne 
 
 Of Lucifer on one high step was raised. 
 
 And that, deliberately then he took. 
 
 Thou Holy Spirit ! while this dread conclave 
 Of traitor angels I attend, assist; 
 I shudder at the sound of their loud speech, 
 And start from all they say abhorrent back. 
 Imploring Thy assistance to record 
 The gaU and wormwood of such awful words ; 
 
 First, the arch-agnate, darkening in pride. 
 Indescribably rose above them all ; 
 Thus Saul, above the height of Heber's sons. 
 Thus the Olympian look'd ; a moment he 
 Holds expectation to the startled ear : 
 " Kings in your right," cried he, " ethereal powers. 
 And majesties, unto our council come ! 
 Our fuU nobility at length assumed 
 With aU the honours due to gods so high ; 
 From premises like these debate our case." 
 
 ApoUyon rises when the quaking ceased 
 Which foUow'd those brief words ; desperate change 
 Was come across his features, fairer once 
 In heaven than Atys ever look'd on earth ; 
 
THE CHEISTIAD. l9 
 
 His wings are sadly ruffled, while his crown 
 
 Was placed, or fallen, over his face awry : 
 
 " Imperial chief -of angel gods," cried he, 
 
 " With the resolve of freedom they are strong ; 
 
 No wrongful throne shall stand in heaven, decree 
 
 An end to usurpation and disgrace : 
 
 Impunity hath folloVd our revolt 
 
 Against Omnipotence, so that to call 
 
 Which lorded angels as a herd of slaves; 
 
 For those who fondly hug the chains of shame. 
 
 Say what a cowardice so great deserves :" 
 
 Audacious thus spoke he ; so CatUine 
 Against his country ; Sejanus against 
 His emperor dnd friend : then Nisroch rose ; 
 Equally alter'd in appearance, he 
 Looks like a ruffian who prepares the knife 
 For his detested foe : " Thou hast express'd 
 The general thought," cried he, "for all depends 
 On instant action and godlike resolve : 
 Aurine although the antechambers be 
 And fill'd with eyes, that God always surround. 
 Though cloud, and smoke, and wonder, guard his throne, 
 Cloud, smoke, and wonder, we wiU roll aside 
 And hurl him from the wrongful summit down 
 Amongst the crowd grovelling at its base ; 
 Empire shall then be ours ; most bravely gain'd 
 As firmly kept, against the force of fate, 
 The dread of faith, and menaces of death ! " 
 c2 
 
20 
 
 THE CHRI8TIAD. 
 
 Baal spoke next ; the veins that coursed his head 
 Swell to his raging words of pride and fear : 
 " All the receding shrines of God are fired 
 To an intensity that few would dare 
 Thinking of all the ashes that it made, 
 The calcination of intensest fire ; 
 Impenetrable they remain to him 
 Who penetrated farthest when God seem'd 
 A shadow or a sham to unbelief, 
 But the mysterious throne shall soon be reach'd 
 With such assault as nothing can resist." 
 
 Togarmah, as a murd'rer with his mate 
 Both bloodied all over, adds thereto 
 Councils of desperation so extreme 
 That every pen such dreadful words refused : 
 God's bondslaves should be slaughter'd, though His flames 
 Flamed out destruction : speedy downfal came 
 Upon the regnant Lord when they, the gods. 
 Determinate were bent ; tbe course of doom 
 Was theirs to order ; their initiate act 
 Shook usurpation to the very depth ; 
 Those who misdoubted most were surer now 
 Of an eventual triumph over Him 
 Who such a licence as was theirs allow" d, 
 Perforce allow'd, or, surely ! they were check'd : 
 
 Adramelec shakes loose his pinions wide 
 Unto the fever'd air that speech to hear ; 
 Within his mind a cockatrice was hatch' d 
 
THE CHRISTIAD, 21 
 
 That stingeth worse than the coprella stings, 
 Or than a thankless child his parents dear : 
 Haggard looks he, advising instant act 
 Up to the bent of pride against the Power 
 Forsworn when they the great archgerent hail'd 
 Superior to the sovreign Crown on high 
 And more than God's competitor. His Lord I 
 Delay was hazardous and it was bad, 
 For the assaulted Throne gain'd time to meet 
 The dread emergency they had on hand 
 If hesitation, or uncertain fear. 
 Protracted action on the point offeree, 
 And left the crisis stranded where they sate ; 
 " Break down Jehovah instantly," cried he ; 
 " Now is our opportunity, revenge ! " 
 
 Upstarted thousands to their feet at that ; 
 All the unspoken Powers on fire are set, 
 MilUons start up with them equally fired ; 
 " Adramelec ! " they roar, as roar the wild 
 Atlantic billows to the signall'd wind 
 Which eyes the everlasting hills their prey ; 
 Against the tropic they to rage are lash'd, 
 The equatorial skies are fill'd with spray. 
 The sun himself goes out, earth, ocean, heaven 
 In one commingled ruin seem destroy'd j 
 Such those Rebellious, rolling all their eyes 
 Gorged with the redshot ire from his incaught, 
 Flinging aloft their wing as prompt to swoop 
 
22 
 
 THE CHHISTIAD. 
 
 Destroying down on the imagined prize, 
 Rend God to pieces and His sceptre seize. 
 
 Then the archprincedom, threatening of shape, 
 Most dreadful, stood upright, his hair well-nigh 
 On end for joy and terror ; so the big 
 Black Lybian serpent rears above his brood 
 Highest the crested dread when they espy 
 Some passing beast too strong, or not within 
 Their fatal spring as yet : the frown of hope 
 And resolution his, these words are heard ; 
 
 " The gods have said as it became incensed, 
 Insulted, deities this day to speak 
 Under the spur of insult to disgrace ; 
 This demonstration high becometh you, 
 Impatient under all the wrongs of sway ; 
 But be not inconsiderate in such strength 
 As appertains to right, however wrong 
 May add to imbecility of nerve ; 
 Fond inexperience would soon be snared 
 By bad oppression, and our league might fail 
 Were forecast wisdom sent into our rear ; 
 Our confidence is might, but let not that 
 Vaunt altogether prudent doubt above ; 
 Distrust is careful in a slippery place. 
 Where confidence might change the head and heel ; 
 For this, considerate counsel we required 
 Upon the entrance of our grand emprise : 
 The gradient of government is solved 
 
THE CHUISTIAD. 23 
 
 By reason rather than by passion ;' force 
 Moral supremely rules the heavenly world : 
 Lightning' we have, enough to overwhelm, 
 If not consume, our Enemy ; horrent arms 
 Are mine, beyond the daring height of thought; 
 Whirlwinds are ready at our beck to bare 
 The heaven-of-heaven unto its central axe ; 
 But forethought stUl prefer, until, full-wing" d, 
 At disadvantage God is forced or yield :" 
 
 While yet he spake, a watery ocean, caught 
 Into a ruin'd vortice, so was cast 
 Centrifugal away that out it burst 
 O'er the conspirators of ruin there : 
 When the terrestrial pole aside was tum'd, 
 Long after, and the blasts septentrional 
 Met Auster with rude Mesocsesius 
 And lapyx contending rattling mad. 
 Sea, earth, and air, commingled, hail and storm 
 Of rain adversely whirl'd far, near, and wide, 
 Such tempest they made not, as thereupon 
 That palace of rebellion thundering beat, 
 Tun-et and tower, spires of height sublime 
 Dizzy to see, hurl'd frequent down ; at last 
 The palpable obscure of dome and roof 
 Involved come down, like an iU built-up house 
 Upon the masons reckoning life as lost ; 
 Then, the root-ground uptorn, whole continents 
 'Gainst one another desperately dash : 
 
24 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 So ice-ribb'd Neva broken by the rage 
 
 Borean ; so the isles Ortygia broke ; 
 
 So Attica was taken by the flood 
 
 Ogygian : sported by both wind and wave, 
 
 Up whirl the angels, or, dash'd down, they drown 
 
 Fluttering, bewilder' d, lost j like halcyons wing'd 
 
 Far out to sea by tempests wrathful black : 
 
 Wassailers pbison'd by the cup they quaff 'd. 
 
 Birds caught within the springes or a-net 
 
 By some sly fowler, misers robb'd of all 
 
 Their gold when adding to the ill-got store. 
 
 Are wretched objects; what must these appear? 
 
 But Lucifer, though frenzied, waved his wings 
 
 On high, throne-safe amidst the foundering crowd. 
 
 Exultant over horror on his throne : 
 
 As in a midnight wrack the smaller clouds 
 
 Before the hurricane tumultuous flee. 
 
 So flee the angels, billowy confusion 
 
 To mountains, higher than Sorrata, piled ; 
 
 Still the archgerent lightning darts, co-ruling 
 
 That storm as master : Mozazor and Icke, 
 
 Haabon, Asmodai, Abadona, 
 
 Arioch and Ramael, whom our Milton sang, 
 
 Flush'd to that hurricane and sunk the last : 
 
 At length its rage was spent, and then arose 
 
 Lucifer ; like an evening sun obscured, 
 
 Or much belated in the depth of year i 
 
 Far as eyesight could pierce, the steaming stars 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 25 
 
 He sees at random strewn or heap'd about ; 
 The hills were vaguely gone, the valleys fall'n 
 Unimageably low until the frame 
 Of his tetrarchal realm starts out exposed : 
 Inosculating veins of sang-uine crimson 
 Into surrounding smother stretch their lines, 
 Stone-solid rainbows, running to jet-black, 
 There the arterial forces sought firin ribs 
 Braided to azures of cserulean strength 
 And Himmalayian backbones of force ; 
 Gorgeous were they indeed, surpassing aught 
 That the enraptured poetaster dreams 
 In the Titanic stretches of his soul ; 
 What equidistant Lad been, lay awry 
 In angled manner, that Blysian scene 
 Depictured to offensiveness and smutch : 
 Thus was his realm dismantled, swept to doom 
 Its fulgent furnitures, exterminated 
 He really thought his crazy boastful gods ; 
 Yet with some hope (oh who ever so hoped ? 
 And with such disappointment in th' event !) 
 His voice he lifted ; like the booming sound 
 Of cannon heard from some night-stranded ship 
 Cast on the wild Trinacrian shore away. 
 Such time shrill Scylla answer from the blast 
 Tarries, collecting all her inward parts. 
 To the quick hearing of the rebels, that ! 
 As to mistrusting boors hopeful of wreck. 
 
26 THE CHEISTIAD. 
 
 Across the space comes loud ; they doubt, l)ut " Hark !" 
 
 And then exult from all dismember'd orbs, 
 
 Though plunged to bottom of unquiet seas, 
 
 Or whirlwind-drifted o'er the frozen floods 
 
 And fiery fens of the unbounded range 
 
 Of chaos, lo ! they come : first, thorough drench'd, 
 
 Adramelec, still godlike if dismay' d. 
 
 Heads his retainers, wing'd with Nisroch's back ; 
 
 Many a broken plume sore they regret ; 
 
 With all his Principalities, in haste 
 
 Comes Haraphon, prince-proud even to shame ; 
 
 Zabrash returns his Seraphim ; the Powers 
 
 Togarmah signall'd to as quick return j 
 
 Baal heads his Dominions, more than Timor 
 
 Counted when Asia summ'd her multitudes ; 
 
 The Cherubim pour on, by Moloch led, 
 
 Ekriel and ApoUyon close at hand ; 
 
 Chill change was theirs within no lengthen'd space : 
 
 So some fierce general fords an unknown stream 
 
 To loss of his munitions in the sands ; 
 
 His bold battaUions drench their flags and leave 
 
 All their accoutrements of war behind ; 
 
 But the tide turning, integration comes. 
 
 The saturation ceases, and his men. 
 
 Although half stifled, unto life return ; 
 
 Their wonted pride comes back with safety then, 
 
 And wide congratulation courses down 
 
 Right from their general to the sutler's tramp : 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 27 
 
 Such gratulation startled, Muse, the ear 
 As myriads make, each unit of the whole 
 A god, whose ordinary speech would drive 
 Man's little race to aU the death of fear. 
 
 Then strange debates ensue, their thoughts at large 
 From reason loosed, as were the orbs unlink'd 
 Prom the causation which was always theirs ; 
 It seem'd indifferent what any said 
 In the impulsion of a scene like that : 
 If most illogical before, absurd. 
 Preposterous, now nonsense reign' d at large 
 As of both Night and Chaos they discoursed : 
 Contingency, one said, had never been, 
 Order was all fortuitous, God arose 
 From the concurrence of the sheerest chance : 
 Why were they there ? pestiferous was the place ; 
 What then had happen'd ? heaven was all deranged ; 
 What night to heaven belong'd was day compared 
 With the dark apparition which appear'd 
 When they retreated to take counsel there ; 
 Were they the origin of that black thing ? 
 Had they begotten the disorder'd dread 
 Chaotic that preceded terror there ? 
 
 Thus numbers stutter'd madness, Kke a mob 
 Cercopian, into apes and monkeys changed ; 
 Loud was their chatter, now agreeing, then 
 Desperately disagreeing, knotting worse 
 What they unravell'd, quarrelling, ape-like : 
 
28 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 As in some parliament gone quite distract 
 
 By the strange machinations of a knave. 
 
 The demagogic Cromwell ruling through 
 
 The gross fatuity of hypocrites, 
 
 Thus it was argued, if to argue mean 
 
 Assertion to the last insanity. 
 
 Blaspheming language heard on every side : 
 
 Who toTioh'd their special sphere and spread their skies 
 
 With wintry darkness ? 'twas the work, or malice. 
 
 The sport, or effort, of the opposed Crown ; — 
 
 "Intolerable presumption!" Moloch cries. 
 
 Striking the tabernacled throne in rage, 
 
 " Dare the Heaven-shaker ! out with all our rage 
 
 Red-hot ! be fleet of foot and swift of wing !" 
 
 Up they all started ; up ! impetuous up ! 
 Like gaunt Gsetulian wolves that scent a horse, 
 Already flesh' d, in thougbt, upon his flanks ; 
 Pernicious ire was theirs, but Zabrash calls 
 Out with a quivering lip that damps the flame ; 
 The flush of rage is paled, and prudence brougbt 
 Back to their counsel with successfiil care 
 When he, with more than an iEschyUan scream, 
 Declared 'twas madness Chaos to forget 
 And Nigbt, an enterprise like tbeirs in course ; 
 Those shadowy forms, if forms they were, stretch'd out 
 Hands full of amity and helpful aid 
 In the dun distance as rebellion work'd ; 
 It was a question if this evil flood 
 
THE CHBISTIAD. 29 
 
 Proceeded not from them, thereto disposed 
 By inattention which contemptuous look'd; 
 Thus, having lost so much, more they would gain 
 In winning Night and Chaos to their side : 
 
 On high the sceptre of command flash'd bright 
 Above his glowing angels tower'd the head 
 And flash'd the eyes of their encrowned Pride ; 
 Drive the last lightning in God's face and fire. 
 Not drown, his towers reprised ! seem'd he to cry 
 Whom the rebellious look'd to as their Head, 
 And Moloch urged them on : him to compare 
 With her who drunken Alexander urged 
 Against Persepolis ; Thais prevail'd 
 To ruin that magnific city, but 
 In their sublimity for ever stand 
 The City and the Tower of the Lord, 
 Against them never shall the gates of hell 
 Prevail, for they are built, and last, for aye. 
 
 Inwardly groaning as he rose thus high 
 But wrought to all the measure of revenge, 
 Lucifer hopes as Saturn did not hope 
 When in the Celtic wastes the curse was told 
 On his usurping son ; three times he stamps, 
 Calling aloud to Chaos ; Chaos heard. 
 And from the mine of matter bursts so wild. 
 Delirious, that his every limber snapp'd. 
 And thus with armlets, leglets, dangling down, 
 Pendant upon his chest a face more grim 
 
30 THE CHKISTIAD. 
 
 Than was Medusa's 'when Theseus drove 
 At the Centaurians petrified thereat. 
 Chaos before the shuddering angels pass'd 
 And at his feet a shapeless body fell : 
 
 As look'd Phineus and his followers hardening 
 To adamantine flint, Lucifer looks. 
 With him his angels, at that dreadful thing : 
 It had no voice, but, voculative, scream' d. 
 And screech' d, and scream'd again until they saw, 
 Or thought they saw, nine hundred heads or more, 
 (Orthus had only two,) continually 
 At war with one another j heads of hounds, 
 Bloodhounds, blear, black, and bony ; heads of birds. 
 Like that grey vulture's which on liver lived ; 
 Some were like what the Lybian giant had, 
 The threescore-cubital disgrace of Earth 
 And jellied Sea, ashamed to gender him : 
 Blood-curdled were the rebels that to hear, 
 And that also to see : so might an owl. 
 Flitted in through the lattice at midnight. 
 Startle banditti who have just embrued 
 Their hands in some estray'd rich traveller's blood, 
 Who almost think it his revenging ghost : 
 But the arch Anarch cried to him, " Give up. 
 Terrible Object, unto us thy strength ; 
 Uncover all thy secrets to the gods :" 
 
 Groan upon groan did he, ridding from off 
 His joints their livid fleshliness with throes 
 
THE CHBISTIAD. 31 
 
 Au^enting in their fearful agony 
 
 To every change and awful horror, more 
 
 Prodigious in degree the more he sloughs 
 
 His frightful figure ; not the shape of Death ■ 
 
 In Phlegethon, nor Sin, were half so dread : 
 
 His rotting vertehrals at length unhared 
 
 To the archgerent, hack fearfiil he starts 
 
 As if from Destiny, the cherubic 
 
 And great seraphic lords huddling around : 
 
 Their daring prince returns ; his strongest hands 
 
 That live jagg'd skeleton engrip; on high, 
 
 Arm-length on high he holds it, shouting out, 
 
 " God must turn white to see this sign of ours ; 
 
 Our Sign ! and, now, with Chaos, gods, drive on !" 
 
 As when Antseus, though before nigh dead, 
 Renew'd his vigour if the ground were touch' d. 
 Chaos, acknowledged thus, no longer pain'd 
 Nor truculent, leaps up in lanky gleie. 
 None saw and none can tell into what height : 
 As Phorcys caU'd to Ceto ere she spawn'd 
 The Gorgonites, so Night by him is caU'd 
 Through all his vents that may to speech apply ; 
 Night speeds for answer thereunto, as speeds 
 A Cyanean rock unto the bottom 
 Of the red Euxine, all the waves displaced : 
 The Elemental salts start blazing forth 
 Soon as they signal, what to man are earth. 
 Air, fire, and water; signall'd are the whole: 
 
32 THE CHHISTIAD. 
 
 Unleasli'd behold them, banded to a force 
 
 Of inconceivable offence and power : 
 
 Unto the heavens, against the central towers. 
 
 Waving' their hair, all disarray'd dash they. 
 
 Chaos, and Night, angels, the elements, 
 
 Lucifer scarcely heading the pell-mell : 
 
 Upon the ledge of inner heaven they come. 
 
 They flounder on it but, elanced, go o'er 
 
 Deranged ; the rebels shrink, they fail, they stop : 
 
 To smothering smoke dissolved. Chaos wheels back, 
 
 Evaporating in a most sooty sort. 
 
 And ruin'd beyond ruin by the wheel: 
 
 Compulsion on him come, amazement-mad. 
 
 Abject he flees ; suns, stars, on every side 
 
 Bestrew the way he takes back whence they came : 
 
 Before the frame of that dismantled realm 
 
 Which Lucifer inhabited, where he held 
 
 Dominion as a god, almost his own. 
 
 Chaos forgets his fear and speed to gaze 
 
 At the incomparable mystery 
 
 In that most wonderful design exposed ; 
 
 All his unfinish'd amaurotic eyes 
 
 Felt sore, their unmade sinews strain, break, snap, 
 
 To climax'd horror and insanity 
 
 Before the miracles of art therein : 
 
 Up then himself he heaps, constrictor-like, 
 
 Quick meditative of the sudden spring ; 
 
 All his enormous hulk is energised, 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 33 
 
 Against the centre of the whole he goes : 
 The poles are shook, they grate, the longitude 
 Is lost, the bulwark'd sides of all that realm 
 Go down in wild confusion at the rush ; 
 Each mountain ridge is broken at the back 
 Which trended certain to the arch'd keystone ; 
 It starts, it falls, with a tremendous crash. 
 Incalculable ruin round about : 
 No miser's heir impoverish'd to nought 
 By dissipation, his last guinea spent, 
 Fearing to be arrested in the garret 
 Where all the hoards were earn'd so thrown away, 
 Going hipQself to hang, a shower of gold 
 Brings from the ceiling with such joy as his j 
 A spendthrift drives the nail and ties a noose 
 To end merely the misery of debt. 
 Chaos was in a still more desperate plight 
 When this accession, all imhoped-for, came ; 
 And it was valued more than what could buy 
 From Danae even Jove's supreme delight. 
 And to this day will buy all earthly things ; 
 Such spoil was fallen to Chaos with delight 
 Of surfeitation which no heaven could bearj 
 From heaven he hurries frantically glad : 
 
 Not long behind comes one, in equal haste 
 But different thought, 'twas Lucifer, appall'd 
 Suffering such desertion ; more appall'd 
 And harrow'd is that prince his sphere to see ; 
 
 D 
 
34 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 He paused not but determined ; broad the road 
 Palpably left by Chaos, that took he 
 Although Marmarica know no such winds 
 Of fire as that deserter left behind ; 
 Through the innumerable wastes beyond 
 The limits of the light, into the blank 
 Informal nothing, Lucifer pursues ; 
 Chaos is overtaken, with such force, 
 A-head, swifter than any thunderbolt. 
 Thousands of leagues the fierce archgerent shot ; 
 He turns on wings reversed, yet more enraged, 
 And Chaos is arrested by main force : 
 So an athlete some Mauritanian giant 
 Stops with the science that is all his own ; 
 So seized Alcides the Nemean lion 
 With bold assurance even by the gorge : 
 Concave rose Chaos, like a beetling crag- 
 Crushing to view ; or like the rampious wave 
 That burst o'er the Corinthian strand into 
 A bellowing bull; hoarser was Chaos than 
 Hoarsest Charybdis when, with stroke of arm 
 And oar consummate, pass'd the Ithacan j 
 All his Briarean arms, reintegrating, 
 Upheaved are, all, at once ; down then they come 
 So ponderous on space that space seem'd flat. 
 All mouth from the infinities to all 
 Infinity so hammer'd as it was ; 
 Motion looks motionless in him, such was 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 35 
 
 The quick celerity of all his parts ; 
 
 His mouths and nostrils grow more monstrous wide, 
 
 His countenances change deathful in hue, 
 
 His shanks puff out enormously abroad, 
 
 Black poison squirting out from all their pores ; 
 
 Without reflection, then he fought, he tore. 
 
 He raged, great volumed flames flaming, each one 
 
 Enough to shroud our solar universe : . 
 
 In ice and fire the fierce archgerent fights 
 Yielding himself to as ungovern'd wrath ; 
 His arms were all upflung and, with a vengeance, 
 Down-thunder' d, upon fearful Chaos came ; 
 Woful the wear and tear, now one, then th' other 
 Vanquish' d, as it appear' d, to certain death : 
 Alarming was their work ; so Milo fought 
 With his antagonist ; so Eteocles 
 And Polynices in unsated hate : 
 Three times had Chaos in three weazands felt 
 His vitals threaten' d, in reprise thrice he 
 With the extremest crush redoubled drove 
 Home to his Author's heart ; then vomited 
 Was blood, so we must call it, thence upspring 
 What Hesiod dream'd not and Typhoeus scom'd ; 
 Pelorus, Pachynus, and Lilybaeum, 
 Were nothing in their eye ; and yet those sprites 
 Are nothing in comparison with the two 
 Arch-duellists, and what they did was nought ; 
 As the wild bulls of Basan roar, roar'd they, 
 D 2 
 
36 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 'Twas heard nor heeded ; to those combatants 
 Their help, or hindrance, was but cobweb found ; 
 They weigh not as one feather in their scale. 
 
 Thus Lucifer implacably, no less 
 Implacable was Chaos ; where his brains 
 Had been had he own'd any, through and through 
 Lucifer sent his hand, another going 
 Down on the hollow vertex of his foe, 
 Smash'd it to atoms past repair from hope; 
 Then out rush'd all that Chaos e'er conceived. 
 Abstractions mad to everlasting want 
 Of probability and senselessness ; 
 Forfend the fate of Athamas, for these 
 Might to absurdity the poet drive 
 Until the fate of Actaeon was rehearsed ; 
 Aglope, Ligia, by the Sabines fear'd 
 At cape Licosa, nor the furies which 
 Were metamorphosed by the fell CEnean, 
 To them may be compared ; nor yet the crop 
 Sprung up to Cadmus from the dragon's teeth : 
 Terrifically venomous, they fall 
 On one another, as the others fell ; 
 They raze as comets will in conflict raze ; 
 They froth, they foam, darken and dash, break down, 
 Eise up ; they smash, rend, rive, hack, hew, mind, soul ; 
 Awfulest action ! none before, none since 
 May thereunto be liken'd ; name not here 
 The Lapithites, Chimseras, Dirae, they 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 37 
 
 Were simple; name no wars which demigods 
 Waged against destiny and overcame; 
 Put up Fame's lying trumpet, or so hlow 
 That trumpet 'till it crack, an infant's toy; 
 All images are useless, metaphors 
 Are childish in this supernatural page : 
 Monstrous they tear each other to the heart 
 But oh, soon as they tear so soon it grows 
 Again, though tetter' d, cancrinous, and black : 
 Now Chaos is dragg'd down, as if the hound 
 Of hell was Chaos, growling to be down ; 
 But fangs are iix'd in the archgerent's back ; 
 Gifted with more than Amycus could boast 
 Of life or such dread fangs had death assured : 
 And Chaos victor proves, though who was strongest 
 No mortal nor immortal pen may tell ; 
 Enlarged to all his verge, batlike he spreads 
 His wings of wonder membranously out. 
 From the collapse which Chaos had reduced ; 
 Lucifer most exorbitantly spends 
 Through the absorb'd abysm tremendous strength, 
 Black, blue, hot, cold, he makes perpetual round 
 Ruining all the sides that Chaos had, 
 Upon himself turns he, that foe incaught : 
 
 Kite-god nor leopardine that cage could burst, 
 And who might break it ? the archprincedom raves, 
 He rifts, he hales, whole hemispheres he hauls 
 Down on his danger'd head ; he burns, he grinds. 
 
38 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Infixes, gnaws, eats, rends, but Chaos grows 
 
 Over him in extent to firmer power : 
 
 So a huge elephant or tiger taken 
 
 In-pitted, round they tear, leap, lance, and rush ; 
 
 So a great criminal enmesh'd by Law, 
 
 Turns, tries, tramps round, his neck to save, in vain 
 
 Procrustes was less cruel than the Law, 
 
 Or Chaos then to the astonish'd king : 
 
 Like snow upon some fainting, struggling, wretch 
 
 Lost by degrees from sight, Chaos descends ; 
 
 Strengthening all his web, every limb 
 
 Resisteth less and less, 'till pain, thought, life. 
 
 Nor person, save proud Chaos, there appear'd ; 
 
 Lucifer in that Chaos lies undone. 
 
 — ®- 
 
BOOK 11. 
 
THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 Poesy, whom our Author addresses, helps him to resume the 
 story where Night overtaltes Chaos and conceiveth by him and 
 Lucifer the Undying Worm : That monster instantly assailing 
 Night and Chaos, Lucifer is ejected for the defence of both ; 
 Assailed in turn, the archgerent is transfixed, in so agonising a 
 manner that he invokes all his angels; they come; he prevails 
 with them over the Worm of Horror, and returns towards the 
 celestial region : Lucifer avows his hope of heaven, but it 
 must be by war ; he prepares his ground, evokes the dreadful 
 equitation and arms of war, exercises his hosts, and marches to 
 battle : 
 
 Struck with the silence of the scene they neared, Lucifer reins 
 his army back suspecting an ambush ; Phalton construes It in 
 another sense, Haraphon proposes to reconnoitre ; Adramelec 
 rejects the advice and is confirmed by the archgerent ; his hosts 
 are however more warily advanced against the walls of heaven. 
 
 Time. — The morning with which the first book commenced 
 still continues.- 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 — ia- 
 
 Thou Soul of numbers, irresistibly felt 
 
 Burning, and seen in elemental air 
 
 Surrounded by all spirits known to men 
 
 And gods, the brightest brighter still for thee 
 
 The fairest lily craves thy peerless paint. 
 
 Gold cries for aU thy gild, fiends are blacken'd 
 
 Blacker, the grimiest sub-Tartarian powers 
 
 And salamandrine gnomes transpicuous lit 
 
 By thine exceeding fire ; lift, lift me up. 
 
 Marvellous Poesy ! beyond the spheres 
 
 Of nature and those compasses of thought 
 
 Which the Mseonian and MOton reach'd 
 
 In the sublimity of their attempt ; 
 
 With euphrasy from heaven's own herbs, in flower. 
 
 Seven times distill'd by lucid moons, my eyes 
 
 Are purged, then summon the supernal Powers 
 
 To action, all the properties of things 
 
 Inform to ready service, strike the strings 
 
 Of iron to an immeasurable swell ! 
 
42 
 
 THE CIIRISTIAD. 
 
 Upon the ear what rushes twang'd to storm ? 
 Colossal spirits rise unto the sound ; 
 Lo, how they thicken, desperately compell'd ! 
 On this imperishable page transcribed 
 By an elaborate fancy, time shall make 
 The master-piece of painting more divine. 
 
 Now Night in that wild drift confounded, scarce 
 Knowing what thing to do, thinking at hand 
 Omnipotential vengeance, through the heavens 
 FoUow'd the track of blackening Chaos back 
 Unto the battlements and giddied o'er 
 Into the void of space wherein was heard 
 That sounding duel ; startled, Night wakes up 
 From all the reveries of fearful thought. 
 Whirling through emptiness, until, at last, 
 Chaos, with breath full brief and jerk of joy. 
 To her convulsed embraces covering rush'd. 
 And Lucifer, perforce in him contain'd : 
 The two she bore, but, with an instant shiver, 
 Her darkling eyeballs starting from the socks. 
 Thereat her contradicting form recoil'd 
 Seized with parturient pains, and, present, forth. 
 Portentous sight ! issued a hydra huger 
 Than huge Jormungandr which round this world 
 The Edda says so sably coils and twines : 
 This Horror named by One who all names knows, 
 " The Undying Worm " forth sallied then to Night : 
 As when the Minotaur was born look'd vile 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 4:3 
 
 Queen Pasiphae, looks she, her carnal child 
 
 Rearing upon her in tremendous heat, 
 
 Tearing Night down, rending her abstract parts. 
 
 Devouring them as soon as he could rend ; 
 
 Next Chaos he assails, cruel to see, 
 
 Ravenously greedy ; as a pitchy cloud 
 
 O'ercharged explodes, so Chaos, throwing forth 
 
 To the impassion'd Worm his prisoner ; 
 
 Up, up towers he at the unnatural sight, 
 
 Measuring the bulk and capability 
 
 Of what was furious upon him to fall ; 
 
 Incontinently turn'd from Chaos, straight 
 
 At Lucifer the monster glows to fire ; 
 
 So a fierce panther from the wolf is turn'd 
 
 When, unexpect, the king of beasts appears 
 
 Right in the path : then the stern princedom saw 
 
 Where Night had been devour' d, the caul whence came 
 
 This dreadful ofispring bristled to the jaws; 
 
 Like ten black sepulchres they stood a-gape 
 
 Waiting to swallow more : blench'd then thought he 
 
 Of his forlornest hope ; Lucifer hoped 
 
 If Night would venture it with him, unflying 
 
 The while under her ebon wing he fought. 
 
 That possibility might bear a flower 
 
 To such a desperate resolve as his ! 
 
 " Dire Shape,'' cried he, upon that horror looking 
 
 Unutterable things ; as if he leap'd 
 
 Trampling upon him ; Ate ne'er like that 
 
44 THE CHHI9TIAD. 
 
 Look'd at Orestes, nor to Hippolytus 
 His sire when palest Phsedra was believed ; 
 Chaos stagnated in his veins, then saw 
 The half-digested Night disgorged to fear. 
 Or a tormenting ventral agony : 
 Night lives, she yawns, she more than ^tna belch'd ; 
 What darkness Heroulaneum and Pompeii 
 Destroy'd and what the cities of the Plain, 
 Out she discharges on the Worm ; he rose. 
 Like ten grim pyths excelling the Lernean, 
 Or that famed drace, which George of England slew, 
 Erect his aspic mane and dorsal spines ; 
 Not against Night turns he, enough of her 
 Was his, on the archgerent down he comes 
 And such sharp stings of poison through him sends 
 That, wrung to anguish, Lucifer cried out 
 Invoking all his angels : like a storm 
 Of hail by an electric shock discharged, 
 From the amazing heights, their thought well-nigh 
 Dissolved and all their senses utter gone, 
 Instant they fall o'er paralysed to fear : 
 As once the Colchians were affrighted, they 
 Were more affrighted when that creature glow'd ; 
 Dead-still but with vitality of joy. 
 The monster saw thinking of plenteous death ; 
 So once the sphynx in Echionian Thebes, 
 Also the snake of Mars like Death upcoil'd : 
 The great imperious prince, chief of the gods. 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 45 
 
 Their king, within his mind withdraws the pain 
 
 Which forced that invocation and appears 
 
 Coolly, but pleased, to see them while he turns 
 
 Contemptuously on the dreadful sight, 
 
 And, in the might which appertain'd to him. 
 
 Quells his insatiate appetite forthwith. 
 
 So well revisiting the pangs sent out 
 
 That, to his withers wrung, the snake recoil'd 
 
 And felt the grapple all too much for him ; 
 
 What fires shot from their eyes no name hath found 
 
 On earth, what sworded scorn cut him in twain 
 
 Is all beyond the power of words to tell : 
 
 No respite his, with fell Typhoean rage 
 
 On come the encouraged angels ; Chaos, Night, 
 
 On they, with one consent, upon that snake 
 
 Of diabolic horror ruthless come 
 
 With all the weapons which hands, wings, and eyes. 
 
 Unto the deities, in full, supply. 
 
 'Twas in a dreary space where they had found 
 Sore circumstanced their Leader, how undaunted 
 And like an emperor th' archgerent look'd ! 
 Their idol king, or chief, was found, and, though 
 Self-saved from the undying worm, received 
 Assistance from the fearless courage theirs : 
 How they all glorify him as they leave- 
 Th' accursed scene to that foil'd worm of dread. 
 For unto heaven they turn ; as Eome-ward tum'd 
 The party of Marius who ordain'd 
 
46 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Proscription upon Sylla and his sect ; 
 
 Distant in view and far on high heaven shone, 
 
 A line of narrowest breadth but endless light, 
 
 Brightening every eye thitherward sent : 
 
 The Jews, outcast of God, come from afar 
 
 Zion to see and gnash the teeth to think 
 
 Abomination of desolation where 
 
 They should be kings and princes over men ; 
 
 Israel shall have the restoration sworn 
 
 To Abraham, hosannahs to our Grod ! 
 
 Those proud rebellious angels, though they hoped. 
 
 Had no assurance of return where heaven 
 
 Was once their blissful seat and happy home ; 
 
 That was a house no longer for the foes 
 
 Of God, quite uninhabitable it seem'd 
 
 When the sheet anchor of their hope was lost ; 
 
 The place whence the archgerent shouted was 
 
 To all his angels pref 'rable before 
 
 That home which Chaos spoilt beyond repair 
 
 To them, where they but helpless units seem'd, 
 
 Obnoxious every moment unto Power ; 
 
 Then fear upon them came beyond the fear 
 
 Of Night, when the archgerent left them there ; 
 
 Without their chief what were they ? upon him 
 
 Their confidence reposed and hope relied; 
 
 The mighty princedom when he rose knew well 
 
 The ground and what intention him became 
 
 In the repudiation of the law 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 47 
 
 And majesty Divine ; despiting God, 
 
 From heaven they all rush'd forth, intent to quit 
 
 Danger, and as intent their prince to find; 
 
 Down from the pitch of heaven they flutter where 
 
 Fresh counsel may be had ; and now yon heaven 
 
 Must, and it shall, be entered on again, 
 
 Their leader competent to all he said, 
 
 Powerful in act as word ; had he rebell'd. 
 
 He the prime favorite prince of power and might, 
 
 Majesty and dominion, hut to lose 
 
 His eminence eternally, his height, 
 
 To be the thrall of a superior Throne, 
 
 The bye- word and disgrace of deities ! 
 
 These are their thought, closing around their Head, 
 
 Potential looking though most racking hurt 
 
 Was his, and many an angel had been stung 
 
 With the insufferable virus ; they 
 
 Like regicidal Damien look, his tongue 
 
 From all its roots pluck'd out, his body torn 
 
 With redhot pincers, boUing oil pour'd in 
 
 Upon the woundfe ; but proud the anarch looks, 
 
 Stood on a mountain like the Eugansean 
 
 Extinct volcanic mountains dark and drear : 
 
 " Thus far we come" said he, "to reascend 
 Our sceptred seats after disastrous loss 
 And evil fortune ; let it not be named. 
 Chaos and Night are here ; what two such sprites 
 Can do none know, but what have ye outside 
 
48 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 The battlemented heavens whereon to stand 
 Save Chaos and his representing mass ? 
 Who feels so light as formerly he felt ? 
 Nay, you are heavier in the sense of being, 
 And many are a labour to themselves ; 
 Attribute this to him who fled the first 
 In heaven without a cause, but we persist 
 In all the expectation that was ours." 
 
 Thus he, more griesly than the god of Thrace, 
 Or than Ciampolo but just escaped 
 From Dante's demon : Ekriel to that returns 
 Full of despondent pain, " Who shall ascend 
 Yonder so high ? and if the heaven were reach'd, 
 How shall we enter through, or overleap, 
 Its inaccessible and guarded round ? 
 We acted rashly, with too quick impulse, 
 When we unfurl' d these weary wings to space : 
 To be upon the wing for ever were 
 Impossible, nor can you Chaos trust ; 
 Too late is this perceived, unless thou find, 
 Great Lucifer, what we despairful seek :" 
 
 With eyeballs like the flaming diamond eyes 
 Of the Orissan idol, unto him 
 Apollyon exclaims, " Disdain be thine 
 Despondent cherub ; what we suffer here 
 Doubles our joy when heaven shall be regain'd; 
 And circumstance subserves the truly brave : 
 Let it amuse th' inventive gods to forge 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Great batt'ries of assault and arms to storm 
 The walls, the citadel, which we require : 
 We rose unweeting and uncaring what 
 Reverse might happen ; shall an accident, 
 A chance, unnerve, distress, immortal gods, 
 Deposing from theuiselves who God on high 
 Protested, ready if a struggle came 
 That struggle arduously to maintain ? 
 All our vacated thrones in heaven are seized 
 And confiscated by the king incensed ; 
 We value little all the thrones he gave, 
 But others in their place demand and raise ; 
 For this, not rash but with deliberate mind 
 Out from our sphere came we to Lucifer 
 Who centres and concentrates all our power :" 
 
 Thus he the Luciferian thought express'd 
 Exactly ; what the great archgerent wish'd 
 In the impression, proud Apollyon stamp'd : 
 Scowling and redden' d, Zabrash thoughtful rose 
 With corresponding thought, " Wouldst thou remain " 
 Cried he to Ekriel " here ? so let it be. 
 And terrorize thyself with phantoms till 
 God is avenged in thy disgraceful state : 
 Why did we rise against his Throne supreme 
 But for the pleasure of our will ? Shall gods 
 Failing all its fulfilment in an hour. 
 Grieve ? gods who meditate the fall of Him 
 Who claims to wield omnipotential power ! 
 
50 
 
 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 Ours shall exceed his own if martial means 
 Amount to what we confidently expect, 
 Althoug^h a leader of our hosts he fallen :" 
 
 Ekriel started ; so a haron hold 
 Belied ; or hrindled lion at a pard 
 Eoaring ; " Scorn'd seraph," he exclaim' d, " revoke 
 Thy insolence ; if I repined our loss 
 And mortal hurt like this, well might I plead 
 The novelty of pain, though we can heai- 
 Whatever happens in contemptuous pride 
 High as thy own ; nor can a god repent 
 Though he confess impolicy ; we act 
 Impulsive at the moment, if with risk 
 Of adverse consequence, 'tis for the gods 
 Enough that what they did was by their will : 
 But since such fearful change to us is come, 
 Reflection will intrude ; and well, methinks, 
 We do in following the example set 
 By our own chieftain to admit that change 
 Previous to what determination comes 
 Of consultation : I with him agree 
 Firmly to stand whatever gTOund is ours ; 
 To scorn all doubt of our eventual gain ; 
 To keep alive the hope that rose in heaven ; 
 For that one spoke of war : if Chaos be 
 Uncertain, we should also call to mind 
 What a disastrous rout was ours in heaven 
 When causeless panic on that Chaos seized 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 51 
 
 And we went after Chaos ; then it seem'd 
 
 As if a natural compulsion forced 
 
 Our absence in the heavens, our presence here." 
 
 Out went his loosen'd wings as pleaders throw, 
 Passionately indignant, wide their robe, 
 Staring at all who see them overchafed : 
 Was it an error thus in him to tell 
 The truth unseasonably ? pride was touch'd 
 In thousands to despondence, which is worse 
 To the unfortunate than instant death ; 
 Pretension felt knife-gash' d ; vanity shrunk 
 Smarting to be so handled ; the archgerent 
 Feels like a charioteer his linchpin loose : 
 Adramelec rush'd forward crying " Forbear ! 
 All thy reflections are injurious things ; 
 Where God enskies, the deities condemn, 
 Not here, as executioners of themselves ; 
 Prostration none for us ; fear was but made 
 For coward, not courag-eous, souls like ours ; 
 Far, far be it from us to deal in words 
 That seal'd our condemnation unto shame ; 
 We triumph! or the gods will be no more :" 
 
 TJtterless thoughts choked up remaining speech 
 In him who thus upon the brink of war. 
 Like the false priest which saith " Peace" where none is. 
 Encouraged who despair'd with empty hope 
 Full to fallacious spite and certain death : 
 After its kind, and only after that 
 E 2 
 
52 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Can evil propag'ate ; a foolish thought 
 
 Produces folly, on itself enlarged 
 
 Even to nonsense ; monsters, monsters breed 
 
 TUI their exaggerations are so vast 
 
 That sense is startled ; What was more absurd 
 
 Than this rebellion ? the archangels sought 
 
 Some explanation as to its intent 
 
 And the intent of him who iirst rebell'd ; 
 
 'Twas too egregious for the least excuse. 
 
 They found none ; yet. Could their superior lord 
 
 Be lessen'd in himself suicidally ? 
 
 Could he who knew so much, forget it all 
 
 Insanely? Might not he some project have 
 
 Beyond the comprehension of all those 
 
 Who bow'd before him, none except save God ? 
 
 Suicidally the archgerent fell. 
 
 Insanely he forgot what knowledge taught. 
 
 His project, no less mad, must be sustain'd, 
 
 That to sustain, although their first attack 
 
 Signally fail'd, war now should be proclaim'd 
 
 Can we absurdities so huge propound ? 
 
 Can they be soberly discuss'd as facts ? 
 
 Are they not too revolting for belief? — 
 
 Alas ! such folly had effect in heaven 
 
 As in this lower world notorious rules ; 
 
 As sin and death are here, chaos and night 
 
 Arose beforetime in the heaven of heaven ; 
 
 And thither they return ! if pride of sway 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 53 
 
 And lust of power with more than angel might 
 May to an issue fair rebellion bring. 
 
 Then rose Togarmah, from his fearful front 
 Shaking the grime ; like Ancseus of old 
 Preparing; " Arm !" cried he; "'tis time we arm'd 
 Under amazement of the past to seize 
 The coming of futurity for ourselves: 
 Illumine matter ! characters of life 
 Give out unto the lifeless ! organize 
 The inorganic to such use as God 
 Conceives not in the secret of his heart ! 
 What hath been done, in ignorance was tried, 
 Or in a moment most adverse to gods : 
 Chaos shall not be supplicated, use him 
 At our good pleasure for that ground of war 
 By which the Crown of heaven shall be undone ! 
 Henceforth no sport is ours, but only what 
 Becomes exterminating deities ; 
 Sharp two-edged swords and such like now for us ! " 
 
 Lucifer looks considerate ; so one playing 
 Chess makes due calculation ere he risk 
 The piece on which his fortune frowns to fear ; 
 His lips are both upon the teeth indravra ; 
 His teeth are closed in readiness to be gnash'd. 
 Or ground, in desperation if it fail : 
 Beyond the pen to write and brush to paint, 
 Around the anarch's eyes roved, roU'd, about 
 His countenance is darken'd to a pale, 
 
54 
 
 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 The fingers twitch, his arms are moved, big drops 
 
 Of perspiration start unto his brow ; 
 
 The thought grows big to act, and, action comes ! 
 
 Down, like the god of war, he smote upon 
 
 The trembling ground; all the terrene confess'd. 
 
 As Delos once to Neptune's trident own'd ; 
 
 Innumerable hippogryphs rush forth, 
 
 Gorgons, chimseras with begilded horns. 
 
 Horses like that which with his fore-feet struck 
 
 At Hehodorus, full of fright and fear, 
 
 And harpy birds, or beasts ; Philoctetes 
 
 Never in his lone island saw the like; 
 
 Creatures with scraggy skulls, speechless to see. 
 
 Exorbitantly bony jinns of might, 
 
 Scabb'd scolopendrians, fiercer than the steeds 
 
 Fed on the flesh of man by Diomed ; 
 
 Gross fire from out their mouth, eyes, ears, spout they ; 
 
 The darksome air is darker to their wings, 
 
 Finn'd to reptilian fishiness of form ; 
 
 In some the pressing pulses underneath 
 
 Were seen to flow like melted lava when 
 
 Oceans of air to their enamell'd chests 
 
 Gasping they drew ; the semi- vital big 
 
 Alligatorians that the unknown soil 
 
 Of earth's unfathom'd seas heave till they shift 
 
 Whole islands, may not be to them compared ; 
 
 Thetis and all her Naiads that confess'd ; 
 
 Serpents were they of a still Salter birth ; 
 
THE CHKISTIAD. 55 
 
 Beyond the solar shadow turned to black, 
 The unseen air births other creatures grim ; 
 Enchased were some with lineaments a-twist, 
 Ten-tush'd and hydra-headed ; vultured shapes, 
 Blue unto blackness dyed in purple flame, 
 With maniac gladness churn to stone the air, 
 Their eyes start out for joy, out loll their tong-ues. 
 Their flesh creeps Ufe to nerve, the nerve to blood. 
 That blood to pride, as fire is buoy'd to air 
 Until the spiral element on high 
 Rages to reach the solar fount its own ; 
 Each rack'd the other then in prankish play. 
 While some come serpenting in sport aside 
 With never-ending involutions down, 
 Widen'd their nostril, all their jaws blood-red, 
 Rav'ning and bloated to a wrathful mirth ; 
 One thing uncommon fierce, wondrous wild-eyed, 
 Comes hunger-pain'd from all his sport to death 
 Upon another ; with a might on might. 
 Rearing a hundred heads he dashes down. 
 Inspired and unappeasable to see ; 
 The muscularian vastness unto both 
 Clashes together at the plated sides 
 In bellied terror ; so full-freighted ships 
 Full-sail encounter, all the masts gone down 
 And every timber started from the groove ; 
 So two hell-clouds from two volcanoes, higher 
 Than Antisan, hurl'd up, together come 
 
56 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Elate to thunder, lightning, storm, and hail ; 
 
 ^tolian plains monstrosity knew not, 
 
 Theirs were not monsters ; these stretch wide the mouth, 
 
 Beat on their brawny-sided ribs the wing, 
 
 Spur swiftness on to turgid heat and drive 
 
 Talons, claws, tusks, and teeth into the bone ; 
 
 Thus they, contesting unto sootiness 
 
 That fills the wide expanse with stifling smoke 
 
 When the archgerent from his mountain with 
 
 A word smote one and th' other into stone : 
 
 So on the Aulian sands, to marble turn'd 
 
 Tradition vouches a most dreadful dragon : 
 
 Others come forth, symbolic both of Night 
 
 And Chaos, join'd to ugliness extreme ; 
 
 Out they all pour, wave-like in number, and 
 
 Like in their generation as the waves 
 
 Begotten in the sea to one another 
 
 Until the ocean-vast is overfull : 
 
 Lacking all things look some, on end their hair, 
 
 To sheer malignity their wings stretch'd out ; 
 
 And some have arms longer and skinnier than 
 
 Witch Mycale who pull'd the moon to ground ; 
 
 These wildly yell the wildest, legion'd fiends 
 
 Viceful in visage, all their eyes deep sunk. 
 
 Fetching a hiss often as they respired 
 
 Through the raw steaming throat of noisomeness : 
 
 Such, CEte and the Achaian cities heard 
 
 Tisiphone out-hiss from Teenarus 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 57 
 
 When (Edipus invoked her ; but the like 
 Choreebus never saw, though one begotten 
 In the Tartarian deep Choraebus slew : 
 
 Thus space was peopled with the broods of war j 
 Uncouth demonians deform and strange, 
 To an impossibility so hard 
 That were all languages eviscerated 
 Of their descriptive terms the whole would faU, 
 From utter want of force and power, to paint 
 Th' intensity of dread created there : 
 Vastly encouraged the rebellious Powers 
 To see what promised empire unto them ; 
 Crash empire must and to them fall, with horse 
 Like those to ride and fight, and with such arms 
 As Lucifer provided to their hand ! 
 As nature figures spiritualities, . 
 Being the vulgar type of what no eye 
 Human can see in their recondite sense, 
 So, here, the use of words, mean in themselves. 
 Must show what arms the gods had furnish'd when 
 The might of war and arms was fiercely call'd j 
 Invulnerable shields were theirs of fire, 
 Their helmets shone to a refulgent black. 
 Their breastplates horror scatter'd, all their suit 
 Of arms emitting horror, dread, and death ; 
 As Pallas started to the birth fuU-arm'd, 
 So instantly appear'd those myriad gods 
 Casqued, plumed, envizor'd, gorgetted, cuirass' d. 
 
58 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Cuish'd, sandall'd, excellently for offence ; 
 
 With baldric, thong, belt, chain, and cinctured sash, 
 
 Starr'd mantle, kingly robe, and all things meet. 
 
 Royal look'd they in martial pomp and pride. 
 
 Grasping resistless spear, shaft, cutlass, sword. 
 
 Sword the majority at once preferr'd, 
 
 Sanguinely thinking that with mail like theirs 
 
 That was a weapon steadier to the hand 
 
 And more effective with an enemy ; 
 
 Others chose clubs, like those great bludgeons used 
 
 In late-found Tootoonah ; some arrows seize 
 
 Feather'd to fury swift as any thought. 
 
 No Parthian sped the Hke though close pursued. 
 
 Although his last best arrow twanging speeds ; 
 
 Their javelins as unerring, surer than 
 
 What went so confident from Mamelukes ; 
 
 And pensile nets were there, for some supposed 
 
 That nets like theirs might snare the birds of heaven ! 
 
 Faulchions some carry, hangers, razing steel, 
 
 Bolts wrought to thunder, Magog-maces, darts 
 
 And bows stronger than Teucer's ; others chose 
 
 Ponderous disks or gaimtlets, surer than 
 
 CEbalian gauntlets ; and such slings were there 
 
 As brought the Balearian to nought. 
 
 Thus some accoutre lightly ; some prepare 
 To sap and mine the heavenly Capitol ; 
 Those too who rode in panoply of arms, 
 Heap'd on their horse, if horse such creatures were, 
 
THE CHKISTIAD. 59 
 
 The choicest gems and carbuncles of fire ; 
 
 Others the lengthful lash smacking, out rush'd, 
 
 Steed-borne to them, chariots of flaming fire 
 
 Impolish'd bright; in shining order there 
 
 Ten thousand thousands regularly range. 
 
 Their whirlwind-footed gryphs impatient stand 
 
 Chafing and foaming while the charioteers 
 
 Pull in the tensive traces to the hand ; 
 
 Argentine harness theirs, they prance in pride 
 
 Kicking impatient ; the Pheretian breed 
 
 Gotten by Zephyr on the harpy-wing'd 
 
 Podarge were most fleet, but when the reins 
 
 Of lightning yielded, fleeter than the light 
 
 Off they all start across the plain of waste, 
 
 Leaving a phosphorescent track behind ; 
 
 Thus they evanish : so the kindling stars. 
 
 Or meteors of a cold November night 
 
 Are seen a moment, that one moment short : 
 
 Nor wanted tent or booth in that wide scene 
 
 Such as becometh war ; amongst them high 
 
 A proud pavilion shines, centrally pitch'd : 
 
 Not the Elishan dye of that rare robe 
 
 Which sumptuous Poppea pleased could shine like that ! 
 
 Its sockets, rings, poles, staples, ribs, and all 
 
 The fi'ame thereof, made gold of Guinea dross ; 
 
 Advanced an altar stood where incense burn'd 
 
 To a continual strain of martial notes, 
 
 Such as Bellona in her Quirine den 
 
60 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Heard when the lictors came to ope the door : 
 Thus he prepared for war : Mnemosyne, 
 Recite the outhned order of his arms 
 When trump on trumpets bray'd attention to 
 The flags there ostentatiously unfurl'd : 
 
 First, Baal ; like some sultan through his troops 
 Of janizzaries come, earth and the ocean 
 In prospect his as of the Giaours he thinks 
 Given to his Prophet : blazon'd at his breast, 
 For his breast-harness, shone a sardell'd sun 
 Inwrought to fire of ornamented ore : 
 Within its main expanse behold the heavens 
 Fair to illusion ; bright and infinite 
 All the palatinates are pictured there ; 
 The cloudcapt towers that God himself built up 
 For all eternity rear high their head. 
 But o'er the entrance gates of Power, instead 
 Of God's express escotcheon, to its place 
 The Luciferian cipher is advanced ; 
 They crown th' archgerent solemnly within 
 An holy sanctuary globm'd to fear : 
 Never was coronation so enchased ; 
 Numberless are the crowners, yet each angel 
 In scenic force on that breastplate appears ; 
 Here thronging legions lift their hand and swear 
 By his great sceptre ; there they bring, Muse, 
 Gath, Askelon, must hear it, there they bring 
 Into captivity the Lord Most High ; 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 61 
 
 His crown is kick'd about with many a jest 
 Of ribald scorn, th' imperial Sceptre broke, 
 No sword of justice was by them believed : 
 There see the chain' d-down angels ; low the head 
 They hang despondent 'midst the conquerors ; 
 Here adzes, blunted with the cruel work 
 Of decollation, in a heap are thrown ; 
 Mangled remains see there, as men are mangled 
 After a battle by the dogs of war : 
 These for the centre of his breastplate, all 
 Its margin crowds to cruel joy and mirth ; 
 The revel to tumultuous laughter goeth. 
 To noisy sport ; to dalliance and lust 
 Rise high the Thoughts and Wishes that reflex 
 Unlicensed angels in the night of joy : 
 
 Thus Baal was illustrated in arms 
 To overreaching treason ; at his side 
 Tabarded stands his bearer with a flag 
 Woven to equal pride ; rear'd as the Turk 
 Advanced his Crescent when it was supposed 
 The Sarracene lay at the point of death : 
 When on pass'd he with all his hosts to storm 
 Of expectation, next Apollyon came 
 With Cherubim innumerous of wing ; 
 Superb was he, as Ajax ere the loss 
 Of the Vulcanian arms Pelides' boast ; 
 His bands, beyond the Locrian bands shine there : 
 Ekriel no less magnificently stood. 
 
62 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Say, not so much encouraged or re-nerved 
 
 As desperate in pride, to stone made hard ; 
 
 Magnific Moloch rules with him to the 
 
 Occasion of so great, so grand, a time ; 
 
 Both the disastrous past by them ignored. 
 
 Importunate the future look'd to them 
 
 For the accomplishment of dire revenge ; 
 
 Their flags stream wide astonishment on the winds. 
 
 Rumour with a rapacious tongue advanced 
 
 Ready to trump their actions to the skies : 
 
 Enceladus stretch' d by th' Avernian lake 
 In penal pain for his immod'rate pride, 
 Look'd never what Adramelec attains 
 When o'er admiring Chaos out his flag 
 Burning was flung, as if he meant to tread 
 Jehovah down under those regal feet ; 
 Oileus name not ; his every look 
 Was more than terrible, dominion won 
 And the eternal all even now seem his ; 
 Presumption none, apparently, was his. 
 But what his manner promised that meant he 
 Really and would, most certainly, fulfil : 
 
 Togarmah follows battled ; through the air 
 An ensign floats that no one else could boast ; 
 The Powers are all his own, his, charioteers, 
 Keen razor'd scythes unto their axles bound; 
 Their coursers, fleet of hoof, gallop to sound 
 That drives the boiling blood back cold to hear : 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 On hippogryphons Haraphon comes on 
 Carrying his crest immutable as God's ; 
 On God scornful as Tityus that chief 
 Thinks with a heart throat high while his concourse 
 Defiles along ; over his beauteous brow 
 A darting dragon shed, or seem'd to shed, 
 Particular poison ; kindling up it kill'dj 
 Or seem'd to kill, all upon whom it glared 
 Down from that summit with a single eye ; 
 One only eye it had, but Envy's thousand. 
 Though so effective, feU from that one short ; 
 That flash'd the night away, all space wax'd warm. 
 And Chaos to his centre tumbled felt : 
 Ord'ring with Haraphon, great Nisroch wields 
 No spurious sword of war ; " On ! " is his word. 
 Anticipating heaven within their power ; 
 To him were harpies with war-wanting wings 
 And formidable talons of offence. 
 Their crooked beaks of iron and iron claws 
 Look daggers that might harrow all the gods ; 
 The flags of these two mighties shone as shines, 
 Struggled through wintry mists, a double sun. 
 
 Who shall impede the Seraphim ? they come 
 Like tawny tempests to the lordly call 
 Of Zabrash sworn to conquest ; his ensign 
 Flutters to an inviolable black 
 That flouts all other ensigns as divine ; 
 Fulgent it stream'd, as if the different lights 
 
64 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Of every heaven save one therein was wove ; 
 When Triron tore it down and rent it, even 
 That noted angel suffer'd in his eyes 
 Almost to blindness from the scatter' d light : 
 Perspicuous bright were the Petasian wings 
 To the high helmet that proud Zabrash wore, 
 Indescribable heads therefrom advanced 
 Blazing, and bickering, burning white to fear ; 
 Wide open stand their gory dripping mouth 
 With huge desire to swallow all the heaven ; 
 The horns with which the ocean-god provided 
 Taurus when forth the sentence went against 
 Resisting Minos mention not with what 
 So fearfully projected from those, heads ; 
 Their eyes had blasted Polypheme's to see : 
 
 High, high above them all, from whence he saw 
 The glittering whole array'd united join, 
 Towers Lucifer ; pond'ring, he stood divine 
 In sight of his enthusiastic hosts ; 
 The fabled lords of heaven and hell unite 
 Both in one person, they but ill portray'd 
 His dreadful stature and compelling grace : 
 Now he inspires with thought of fame to power ; 
 No height could be beyond him, depth was nought. 
 Fortune was his beyond aU providence. 
 His was the supereminential will ! 
 Play'd then the hopeful lightnings at his feet, 
 The heavens turn pale when heaven-ward he looks, 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 65 
 
 Space his refulgent eyes reflect right back, 
 Infinity seems giddied at his glance, 
 And all the gods to worship him are fill'd : 
 So, high enthroned above his satraps, Xerxes 
 The monarch at Doriscus pompous play'd ; 
 Before him Syrian, Persian, Indian, Mede, 
 ^thiop, and all nations, filed along- 
 Saluting as they pass'd the King of kings ; 
 On came the gods like them, or like a sea. 
 An ocean, measured out in constant tide 
 Current to one grand point; the Persian thought 
 All GrsBcia ended, Lucifer ensured 
 The Heaven of heaven his own, fee-sure beyond 
 The power of fate, in perpetuity. 
 
 Upon the far extended plain to sport 
 Of war those rebels at his instance turn. 
 Marching to clarion'd brass, trumpet, and drum, 
 Well instrumented to superior ears ; 
 Legions pursue swift legions in retreat. 
 And these in turn upon whole legions come 
 Brandishing weapons with the mock of war : 
 Numbers long jav'lins, pikes, and spears enlance, 
 Or many a length whole showers of arrows speed. 
 While, monster-mounted, myriads o'er the wilds 
 Interminable on together dash, 
 Their coursers rear'd on skinny shanks aloft, 
 Lighter than tether, swifter than the winds ; 
 Others stride behemoths or bigger beasts. 
 
66 THE CHKISTIAD. 
 
 Such as the heaviest weight of mail may bear ; 
 
 These for their legs had pillars, brawny backs, 
 
 And heads within the hollow'd shoulders grown : 
 
 Others with shovellines and adze-like tools. 
 
 Invented variously, delve marls or tranch 
 
 The rock, with such successful aptitude 
 
 That soon their pit a grave had surely been 
 
 Were not the sides well watch'd from tumbling in : 
 
 Uncounted rise on wing ; self-poised are some 
 
 In attitude of thrusting ; others up 
 
 The perpendicular aspire ; but one, 
 
 Venus his pagan dame, from the dark ground, 
 
 By potent art electric, minerals drew. 
 
 In broader, redder, streams than Acheron, 
 
 And casting their inchoate whole to form, 
 
 On asteroids prodigious mortars raised 
 
 And ramm'd with missiles to their rounded mouth : 
 
 Thus were they occupied, above, beneath, 
 And under ; imprecations often heard 
 And boastful promises what should be done 
 In downright earnest when the day was brought 
 To climax'd hope in a battallious storm, 
 Heaven from the vast of space to murder gorged ; 
 Then the red lightnings, ridden far and wide. 
 All the expanse would deluge in a flame 
 To garish day and dangerous delight ; 
 
 The madness at its height, with gesture proud 
 Out from the cherubim-of-might stood one 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 67 
 
 Defying- forth, within his hand a flag 
 Chiefest in all those armies, Lucifer's, 
 The Paramount of princes, Adversary 
 And rival of Jehovah, God the Lord : 
 Like the boreal light lengthen'd it stream'd 
 Blazing unto the zenith, flickering bright, 
 Spangled with lurid suns that scorching fire 
 To the extravagance of horror spilt : 
 Graft in the centre shone his sovereign sign 
 Extemporised to raging fury, like 
 What the high emperors of rich Cathay 
 Or far Pegu in senseless taste still use : 
 Then blast was heard which Pontus tum'd to stone 
 As from the mountain of his power that flag 
 Unfurl'd its total length to war and death : 
 Higher than Teneriffe as seen from sea, 
 Or than Lamalmon in Tigra, throne-shaped 
 Behold that dreadful mountain ; darken'd like 
 When the thin moon her pointed crescent dips 
 Below the troubled main and all her suite 
 Attend the court of Jove ; thereon stood he 
 Outshining all his angels till they look 
 Humble before the mightful pride and state. 
 Condition, power, and Luciferian pomp : 
 A right imperial crown his head befits, 
 Hand-sceptred is that Lord, War girds him there 
 With the insig-nia supremer than 
 What Mars embellish'd to the Cyprian's love : 
 f2 
 
bo THE CHHISTIAD. 
 
 Eclipsed, his chivalries attend ; no more 
 
 Associates are they ; amongst them none 
 
 Approaches to equality witli him ; 
 
 Glorious they are to power and pride of place, 
 
 But height like his is all beyond the reach, 
 
 Whate'er may be the thought of some who saw : 
 
 Uprose he then ; as Philip's son uprose 
 
 (If we believe Olympia he was Jove's,) 
 
 When to the Greeks bis grand design was shown 
 
 Of universal conquest o'er the world ; 
 
 This voice of thunder the rebellious hosts. 
 
 Beyond the tones of thunder, joy'd to hear, 
 
 " The worth of deities is born to hope 
 And soon shall to the satisfaction fall 
 Of carping and disconsolate doubt be quit ; 
 Yon light invites us confidently tome ; 
 And tremble now the heavens ! for we contend 
 For more tban empire all through this disgrace ; 
 Is not reverse where hope had promised most, 
 Insuff 'rably humiliating to shame ? 
 We must detest it unto incensed rage 
 With feelings that no victory atones 
 Save the consummate triumphs of revenge : 
 God from the cradle of eternity 
 Unswathed, scarce dare to meet the gods thus arm'd ; 
 If come, He will, with the archangels come ! 
 Equal to all, your leader shall be proved." 
 
 He said stern motioning the heavens in sight. 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 69 
 
 As if a scowl should reach them to dismay 
 
 And all the angelry turn deadly pale ; 
 
 None might his march arrest, who could subdue 
 
 The serried phalanx of such countless hosts ? 
 
 Bray'd then the trumps to sounding bale, the war, 
 
 Enfronted for an instant, is let loose ; 
 
 Unbounded war bursts forth, brazen of hoof. 
 
 Quick-eyed, impetuous, rash, invitall'd, form'd 
 
 To the tread-measure of unthinking pride 
 
 And all the confidence which soldiers form : 
 
 Like a deep lake ice-pent for ages on 
 
 The summit of an alpine height, they come 
 
 With full impetuosity of soul 
 
 And all the weight of martial bearing down ; 
 
 Night too and Chaos come with all the fell 
 
 Assurances of ruin unto death 
 
 For such as found itself before them thrown ; 
 
 The universe before a flood like that 
 
 Were as a poor small village in the Alps 
 
 Before an avalanchian thunderbolt ; 
 
 If Cotopax were toppled o'er earth's verge 
 
 Sheer down, a man's resistance proved much more 
 
 Effective than this universe 'gainst that. 
 
 Baal deploys interminable lines 
 O'erlapp'd with roughest iron temper'd to ateel ; 
 In more than Pylian armour sheathed, the hosts 
 Apollyon, Ekriel, and Moloch own 
 Sweep forth after those lines tumultuous wing'd : 
 
70 THE CHRJSTIAD. 
 
 So sweeps the hurricane of cloud by night 
 
 j^olian commission'd through the dark, 
 
 On dreadful tempest bent with storm on storm : 
 
 One vast unruffled wave then Nisroch came, 
 
 With Haraphon commanding if such wave 
 
 Can at its equinox be over-ruled : 
 
 Over the dams of Gothland, wind and rain 
 
 The ocean thus, all agitated pours; 
 
 Yet these were they who promised to surprise 
 
 The ever watchful Monarch of command 
 
 Who rilled eternity beyond all height, 
 
 Th' infinitude of heaven His ancient Throne ! 
 
 Gorgonian were the beasts which drove behind 
 
 Shuffling deathful along, as strong to bear 
 
 As to inflict what unto them might fall ; 
 
 Artilleries they drag against such towers 
 
 As Baal might not sap nor Moloch mount, 
 
 Equally deep and high 'gainst their design, 
 
 Secure beyond all mine, and all beyond 
 
 Such weak degenerated wing as theirs. 
 
 Close crowding to incessant want of rest, 
 One on the other flushing up to heat, 
 The harpy-carried legions that belong 
 Unto Adramelec sweep flying on ; 
 Togarmah's myriads, past number'd sum. 
 Exulting follow them, as if restored 
 In all their members from excessive cramp : 
 
 And countless as the Cyrenaic sands, 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 71 
 
 The many-eyed Seraphim, self-shrined, 
 Now arrogate the pass ; not following, nor 
 Second to any but in proper place 
 Moving both to-and-fro progressively; 
 Out went their pinions feather'd to amaze 
 'Till the archgerent started at the sight 
 Of billows white to snow and loud to storm. 
 
 O'er air, sea, syrtes, land, so that to call 
 Which quaked to shakiness beyond all bog 
 Hibernian, on speed they; to such a joy 
 As Mohawks have upon a white man's trail ; 
 When to their cruel hand one is betray'd 
 By evil fortune, every means is used 
 Whereby the savage may encompass death 
 Beyond the chances of escape, his eyes 
 Are brighten' d, whet his ears, the scent is wrought 
 To instantaneous force, his every limb, 
 His total body, mind, and soul, are sold 
 To the grim purpose : with a nameless sense 
 Of ecstacy wrought from precedent woe 
 Th' horizon of the heavens is seen to clear, 
 Faint in the rising blue its golden gleam 
 Outlining unto light the shining wall ; 
 Then words were incomplete their thoughts to give 
 And exclamations fond, for such a sight 
 Indulged the primal instincts of their heart 
 And gave a pleasure to their haggard mind 
 Which cast o'er all his armament a charm 
 
72 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 And brought some sadness unto Lucifer; 
 
 Sadness but short, for, lo, no warden warn'd, 
 
 No garrison made sign, but, out the light 
 
 Pour'd clear and sculptured in the radiant sky 
 
 God's battlements without one single guard ; 
 
 Was God abandon'd then ? Had all the heavens 
 
 Followed their mutiny to ripe i-evolt ? 
 
 Was not one faithful follower left to Him 
 
 Who reckon'd slaves by billions, nor could sum 
 
 Their numbers up with such a silly word ? 
 
 Toil at an end, the heavens are fallen, fall'n. 
 
 To the archgerent ! so that anarch thought ; 
 
 Ripe is the fruit, put forth a hand and pluck ! 
 
 But then a surmise started up, to think 
 
 Freezing, and infamous to all his soul ; 
 
 The tricks of stratagem were on him put 
 
 By the celestial Powers, in fear or scorn ; 
 
 Not fear, behind such towers ; if scorn, what shame 
 
 And despite all those armies suffer'd there ! 
 
 The princedom agonized to stop them short 
 
 In the career, but, instant, with a word. 
 
 To noise tremendous, bucklers brash on shields. 
 
 Cars fall on cars, steeds upon steeds come down 
 
 In infinite disorder when he stopp'd ; 
 
 Better the last disorder than proceed 
 
 Too falsely confident towards a gulf 
 
 Where his battallions might be intomb'd : 
 
 Imperiously he looks, cruelly calm 
 
THE CHKISTIAD. 73 
 
 Unto excess of strength, his balls of sight 
 Turgid and wounding for the gods to see, 
 But care sits on his corrugating cheek. 
 And painful expectation on that brow ; 
 Such as a banish'd lord experiences 
 When his last hope of home is threaten'd by 
 A stern decree of exUe, meant for death : 
 
 His regents rush around their angry chief 
 Enquiringly, looking surprised and hurt, 
 " Heaven is inhabited," cries he, " beware ! 
 This absence is suspicious to the height 
 Of ambush, quick surprise, and fierce assault:" 
 
 Phalton, distrustful of his speech, too bold. 
 He being only a sub-regent there, 
 Humbly suggested that, belief in God 
 Dying in heaven, the angels had removed 
 The government elsewhere ; Lucifer sow'd 
 The seed of freedom ; in the course of things 
 That seed must germinate, sprout out, grow up. 
 And ripen unto all occasion brought j 
 No paradise was there, for revolution 
 Had been consummated in heaven no doubt ; 
 Its perfect work, perhaps, was not all done, 
 May-be a remnant of the angels stood 
 Constant to God, and these, retreating, kept 
 Certainty to suspense of power inscaled, 
 Else welcome shout were theira from myriads come 
 Forth of those silent battlements ; proceed ! 
 
74 THE CHRISTIAD. . * 
 
 In solitary state the Arbitrator 
 And Sovereign of the skies would soon be found 
 Accessible to force ; unto his base, 
 Through the millenniums o'ersway'd by God 
 He surely totter'd to eternal fall ! 
 
 The Nine look dubious as he speaks, unwilling 
 To hazard an opinion while their Head 
 Was undecided ; thus intelligence 
 Unto intelligence answereth mute 
 Through all the regions of superior power ; 
 Ignorance and presumption only speak : 
 Croaster then continued, arguing 
 That inferences like those were much too bold ; 
 What they desired must not be thought too fast. 
 No ages alter'd God, much less an hour 
 Diminish'd Him unto decrepitude; 
 Spirit was always young and able too, 
 One and the same were both the terms, they were 
 Convertible and patent unto God ; 
 And what was fate that God should disregard 
 The brand of cowardice and overthrow 
 Prepared by them, determinately bent ? 
 In His passivity of power was shown 
 God's sense of its completeness, consciousness 
 Of power was always with itself content : 
 What were the angels who obey'd His reign 
 Unto emasculation but God's slaves ? 
 Though vigourless, their heart and hand were God's, 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 75 
 
 Bondage to them was sweet as freedom's self; 
 What worth they had God knew, nor on its force 
 Depended ; meditating' one sure blow 
 From some twelve-handed engine, He remain'd 
 Quiet, unknown, conceal'd, designing when 
 It was the least expected death to cram 
 Unto a surfeit in their overthrow ; 
 To terminate God's sway required some care : 
 The pillars of his state heard these diverse. 
 One hopeful to the verge of what alarm'd 
 The other, as Ahitophel was alarm'd ; 
 Between the two Lucifer looks cut down 
 To dubitation, when proud Baal, reflecting 
 That mere opinion never was of use. 
 Precipitates those two to ground exclaiming 
 That what was so intended none need care ; 
 All the incompetency of the Throne 
 On high was manifested in their arms 
 With power to use them as full soon they would : 
 God himself strengthen'd unto the extreme 
 Of force, fate, wisdom, care, and all the wit 
 Whereby their armature might be opposed ; 
 That was most certain ; aggregations vast 
 Of power would to death their arms oppose. 
 But, On against His walls ! whether to face 
 The hailstorm of God's wrath or to discover 
 Insuperable difficulties raised 
 In bulwark'd strength which only they impair'd : 
 
76 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Haraphon said the universe depended 
 On the decision which was in their hand ; 
 It was a fearful moment, for decision 
 Imperatively tax'd their total mind; 
 Chance nor yet hope should have one moment's trust : 
 The silence which so ominous stretch'd out 
 Might be examined and interrogated ; 
 Drear was the mediate space, but it was not 
 Beyond some venturous wing and searching eye : 
 
 Adramelec replies that search were vain, 
 It alter'd nothing nor improved their arms ; 
 They might be sure the heavens were not for them 
 Without the asking and the forcing too ; 
 By downright storm and violence alone 
 They could be taken, and for that the gods 
 Arm'd as became them with the right resolve ; 
 Unvanquishable pride and equal scorn 
 Were theirs, occasion would be found for both : 
 If what they sought conceal'd itself, 'twas well, 
 " God crouches, he will not surprise us in 
 The spring of resolution for our hosts 
 Long to receive him in these crushing arms ; 
 Out then we press'd his life to force and hate : 
 Whether he watch in conscious weakness, or 
 Remain impassive in the might of scorn, 
 Let us delay no longer ; every trump 
 Thrills to impatience, all the cannon shake 
 To open on the heavens, the armies glow 
 
THE CHRISTIAD., 77 
 
 With a resistless ardour for the heights 
 O'er them to dash victorious into heaven ; 
 The time is come for victory, revenge !" 
 
 So the Armada in the outset checVd 
 By a contrary wind, heing delay' d 
 Further by its commander who supposed 
 That wind ill-omen' d, all his captains thirsting 
 Greedily for our blood and all unweeting 
 That admiral whose name and blood I boast, 
 Urged their distracted duke as these urged on 
 The stubborn Prince of heaven, a power unto 
 Himself nor subject to the fear of death : 
 Assurance from the whole at length he draws ; 
 That they were formidable who gainsay'd ? 
 Did they not arm with purpose to confront 
 God to his face in arms but God declined ; 
 " Witness all deities ! " th' archgerent cried, 
 " What wrong advantage would slyly be taken, 
 Or we are shunn'd to flight by him we seek, 
 In either case we may despise our foe ; 
 To what advantage snares are set we soon 
 Shall see ; who set the toil that toil may catch 
 And harrow also to the height of wrath :" 
 
 With a commanding air he said, forgetting 
 That artifice had been by him proposed 
 In synod to all these impetuous gods ; 
 If he forgot not, what a freedom he,. 
 For a mere libel on the supreme Throne, 
 
78 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Practised ! thus even the excelling prince, 
 Losing or deviating from the line 
 Of right, to utter incoherence goes, 
 Reason and memory with conscience lost ; 
 But who observed it in the strain which comes 
 Panting upon his words ? like the Danaids, 
 Weather-detain'd so long when Menelaus 
 Announced with all his voice the changing wind 
 Crying " To Ilium ! " up the anchors come 
 Heaved to refreshing gladness, all their ships 
 Put on the instant under stress of sail ; 
 With hot alacrity the armies form 
 To bristled order for the march, without 
 One thought of danger in the sea of space. 
 Although so strange and all unknown that sea 
 That every shadow might a shark appear 
 Which foUow'd to englut them in a maw 
 Ravening to blood and hunger for the prey: 
 
 Thus on the great frontier of heaven came they. 
 Over the wild precipitate abysm 
 Of jumbled chaos to the fulgent fringe 
 Of the eternal day in all its light; 
 Out from afar within faint alleluias 
 All through the hyaline devoutly float ; 
 A lightning stroke fall'n on his only son 
 Smitten before his eyes, the father sees 
 Turn'd to a blacken'd corpse with less surprise 
 Than Lucifer heard them : God in his court 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 79 
 
 Unmoved upon his throp.e, to praise inclined, 
 
 Thought he, the while I hostile hither come ! 
 
 Angelic quires, to other strains full soon 
 
 Your citterns shall be tuned, and God prepare ! 
 
 Prepare mine enemy, thyself prepare. 
 
 Contemptuous king, for more experienced arms 
 
 Which soon shall prove supremacy not Thine ! 
 
 Thus thought he and but thought when, gain'd heaven's walls 
 
 Down ominously down grandly they frown : 
 
 Eternal sure defences, up tower they 
 Beyond capacity of seeing ; down 
 As deep inscrutable ; afar beyond 
 Imagination ; and their stones are squared 
 So truly and so perfectly infix'd 
 That joint nor seam appear'd : high as they tower 
 'Tis jasper all to crystal smoothness wrought ; 
 Sapphires come next as iitly built ; beneath 
 Calcedonies, red, purple, white, and gold ; 
 Emeralds follow ; most transcendent stones 
 Beneath those emeralds make the number twelve, 
 John-the-divine of Patmos names the whole. 
 
 Mere obduracy melted at the sight, 
 But in such pride those rebels are ensconced 
 That still they hope to scale or undermine 
 Those hugest bulwarks ; as in wide array 
 His armies stop prevented by their sight, 
 All unassail'd of any from within, 
 Lucifer seeing them could not refrain 
 
80 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 From cursing in his secret mind who own'd 
 Walls so enduring that they must delay 
 The overthrow of God to fate and death ; 
 Braving he saw them, calculating quick 
 What length of time and the amount of work 
 Most indefatigable they would cost ; 
 Ruthless he looks over his ruthless bands 
 Following his flaming eyes, unto their depth 
 His multitudinous following stirr'd up ; , 
 
 If any spirits fail'd it strengthen'd them, 
 So confident was his bearing, all the more 
 Boastful since doubt would creep into his heart. 
 
BOOK III. 
 
THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 Lucifer sits down before the walls of heaven which being 
 sapped and mined, one of the gates also being besieged, the holy 
 angels rise and invoke Jehovah : Michael, Gloi'iel, and Hadriel, 
 are appointed thereupon, and go forth of heaven against the 
 Rebellious : The Battle of Angels. 
 
 Time. — The action opens with the same day in heaven. 
 
BOOK III. 
 
 -S!- 
 
 Now the meridian crystalline shone bright 
 Heaven's lengthen'd day half spent since Lucifer 
 Rebelhng rose, when right before the Walls 
 Of Glory his battallion'd hosts were come ; 
 But ! what task is mine here to relate 
 Their martial order at the journey's end 
 And awful silence, when, with grounded arms. 
 Those armies to reflection turn'd the thought : 
 Seraphic airs like outspent waves from some 
 Far ocean of divinest sound they hear ; 
 Other reception than such holy praise 
 Had been desiderated by his hosts. 
 And Lucifer preferr'd war to the knife, 
 Contesting fury with the fullest scope : 
 So troops Fezzanic come across Saharr 
 Pursue the miraged water unto want 
 And disappointment ending in the pangs 
 Of thirst, exceeding famine fire and sword ; 
 But the archgerent invocating Night, 
 
84 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Over those sounds oceans of spume she sends 
 
 And Chaos raising it on high, they fail : 
 
 Skreen'd thus from hostile sight and thus relieved 
 
 From much unwelcome thought, his strongest hands 
 
 Lucifer chooses for the sap on which 
 
 He somewhat trusted in the last assault ; 
 
 Dark was the work, but none repined to see 
 
 Ten thousand thousand scour the wide campaign 
 
 In chariot-search of preferable task : 
 
 Cortez and his Espagniols so a-horse 
 
 In New Columbia, soft Montezume 
 
 In his fair city ignorantly at peace : 
 
 Such beasts as stalwart riders could fatigue 
 
 Were eased then of all the load they bore ; 
 
 Unto their armour the considerate see ; 
 
 Others Amyclean tents of grandeur spread 
 
 Convenient, many sentinel those tents ; 
 
 Numbers some rest sought hard, rest such as eyes 
 
 For ever open to all thought may take ; 
 
 But never more to them pertain'd that trance 
 
 Which made celestial evenings so sweet. 
 
 From pure ambrosial excess brought round 
 
 With morphic airs, white culminating moons 
 
 Rising opaque, the stellar influence felt ; 
 
 To these some hum such tunes as they might think 
 
 Under their alter'd circumstance, most fit 
 
 And charming still to hear ; but happier times 
 
 Subdued their honied sweetness 'till it fell 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 85 
 
 To insipidity, or vapidness, 
 Believed but by a melancholy drone : 
 
 Thus wore they on the day, but work was done 
 Under the clouds of night which satisfied 
 Every volunteer therein engaged ; 
 The waste of matter by the sappers raised 
 Behind them, in a lengthen'd mountain rose 
 Emulous of the walls they fain impair'd ; 
 So high was that, it offer'd such a start 
 To some bold wings that, like th' Icarian boy. 
 Many rebellious angels strung their plumes 
 And spent their forces in a vaulting way ; 
 Conviction would dissuade, but proudly up 
 Soar'd all their strength immortal on the wing ; 
 The great arch-Dsedalus beheld it fail, 
 Incompetent to the attempt ; fall'n back 
 Fluttering down, confused as down they fell : 
 
 Havocking on goes he, aU undeterr'd 
 By difficulty ; whether solid beds 
 Of fire or ice, strata'd to adamant 
 Impenetrable, were plied ; his sappers wrought 
 Orderly under a sustained roof, 
 The legions posted so that they could pass 
 Instant into the heavens when broken up, 
 All heaven's voluptuous tribes to sweep away. 
 Won to the capitol and throne of God : 
 The Barmecidian feast made such a dream 
 As they fondly dream'd waking till arrived 
 
86 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 At the sardonyx'd course of inwall'd stones j 
 The hope of flying crowds of angels then 
 Collapsed at once, annihilation seena'd 
 Remote as ever, and their prize, far off. 
 Dwindled from all its huge proportion back 
 Into the mathematical extreme : 
 Yet undespairing, perpendicular down 
 Hasty they delve, myriads in relay 
 Scooping the cragged chaos with effect. 
 Behind them Himmala upthrown, then, lo ! 
 The supercumbent earth, aU overhead. 
 Suddenly giving, cracks, it gapes, it falls, 
 Arch'd ceiling, props, and aU, down upon those 
 Who sweated underneath a tomb to make : 
 Dismal it was to see that fissured, broken, 
 And dislocated depth of space on space ; 
 Th' Antilles so broke in ; so Guadaloupe; 
 Out from its horror came th' astonied angels 
 Shatter'd and dislocated in their limbs ; 
 But these incorporal grown, are self-renew'd 
 From wounding injuries that fatal seem'd : 
 Sad was the great mishap ; it but incensed 
 The proud archgerent to exertion fresh : 
 Returning with more care and time they work 
 A deeper pit, until the heavens were thought 
 Once more at hand with all their shining power ; 
 Instead of heaven regain'd and God encaged, 
 The inbuilt stones of price their tools repel, 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 87 
 
 Nor in them was a single flaw detect : 
 
 Blank were the faces of his followers then, 
 To disappointment all their looks descend 
 When Mulciber stepp'd forth and eased their plight ; 
 O'erhanging was his brow, that brow his hand 
 Pass'd long before influent words would come. 
 When come, so rude unshapen were his words 
 That few could gather what his meaning was 
 Save that assault of heaven by mine remain'd, 
 Alone remain'd since sap signally fail'd ; 
 The height and depth of heaven's defences being 
 Beyond their utmost strain, nothing was left 
 But battery of assault within a mine ; 
 Such walls derided every other force : 
 
 When on some shoreless sea a man-of-war 
 Takes fire within her hold ; and through the hot 
 Hatches, though batten'd down, the smoke is forced j 
 To drown that fire being hopeless, all the crew 
 Despairfully abandon the attempt; 
 Then to the admiral a gunner comes 
 Advising that the magazine is caught 
 And soon the gunpowder must needs explode, 
 But the life-boat remains and there is time 
 To scuttle that dread ship and shift themselves ; 
 So Mulciber withdrawing them from fear 
 Attending disappointment, show'd a way 
 From the sharp exigency of the moment to 
 The chances upon which they all relied : 
 
88 THE CHHISTIAD. 
 
 The scoop'd out vast is ramm'd combustibly 
 Back from the litter'd space, while Vathec lays 
 The train of fire which master'd all the mine : 
 The rocks of carbon and saltpetre placed 
 Ready, theii- horrid mouth pursed closely up, 
 Aside the armies, out of danger thinking- 
 Thus to withdraw themselves, are seen to smile ; 
 Hope was their own once more, even to Night, 
 lu expectation hovering on high, 
 As high Night could at the impulsive time. 
 For what approaches now, thought she, was never 
 Known nor imagined by created thing ; 
 Heaven's battlements must tremble to the fall 
 And Night, before the angels, will force in ! 
 Thus that she-spectre and the rebels feel 
 When suddenly, with vast explosion came 
 Upon them hideous ruin to amaze ; 
 The cupola of their prodigious mine. 
 Driven aloft, in volumed haste down-faU'n 
 With smoke torrenting from the agued abysm 
 And furious fires upon their distant heads : 
 As the ephemerids of April go 
 Before a storm of unexpected hail. 
 So fail'd the angels in that flattening fall. 
 Night in the choked combustion overwhelm'd 
 Unto the bottom of the sulph'rous deep ; 
 Down from her height to dizziness came she 
 Insensible to all save pain and fear : 
 
THE CHKISTIAD. Si) 
 
 Terror rode that ill-fated time to terror 
 So that the forces which escaped did quake ; 
 As all great cities trembled, though they stood 
 When Lisbon was sea-swallow'd and disgorged : 
 At length the clouds of desolation pas^'d, 
 Over the vacuous void the walls of heaven 
 Shone out, inviolable strength and light, 
 Superior seen since Night had disappear' d ; 
 At the blue bottom of that mine lay she 
 Profoundly suffocating ; round the brink 
 Of what they thought her grave myriads crowd. 
 And some would fain on Night that grave fill in, 
 From the volcanic precipices sending 
 Ponderous masses of the smoking earth : 
 Sped the archgerent then, frenzied of ire. 
 Ten livid lightnings out before him gone. 
 Restraining lightnings which were none too hot ; 
 It wither'd him to see where Night lay stretch'd 
 Stark staring in a fitful spasmy state ; 
 And yet she dotes to find her Author there, 
 Reviving though lamentable her plight; 
 At him she clutches as they clutch who drown. 
 
 While these were passing, in the distance came 
 A charioteer remorselessly of whip 
 Over his flying gryphons ; forward he 
 Bends the slim body to their shining backs 
 With eye, tongue, hand, and all, urging along : 
 That sight the rebels watch'd, wishing his goads 
 
90 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 And their appliance sharper : Elis ne'er 
 
 Witness'd such speed as theirs, Phlegon with Eous, 
 
 Pyrosis and j^thon thundering down westward 
 
 Driven by the son of Clymene, were slow : 
 
 The news was short brought by that car-borne god 
 
 But most important at the crisis ; he 
 
 Driving far on, close to the heavenly wall, 
 
 Had seen a marvellous gate ; the gate was shut. 
 
 But none supposed of door within such walls ; 
 
 What was its purpose ? Was there then a road 
 
 From heaven proceeding out to random space ? 
 
 This was a mystery to reason' d thought, 
 
 But while they queried, in the dense inane 
 
 Another chariot maketh equal haste ; 
 
 Such haste as left no shadow in its track : 
 
 Full confirmation of that gate it brought. 
 
 Set in the jasper Irame of the great wall ; 
 
 When the grand view burst out to those who saw. 
 
 Their horse were dazzled to excess of light 
 
 And back they fearful sped with such report : 
 
 Thence sallying with his angels. Why did not 
 Jehovah come upon those armies down 
 And Lucifer to hopelessness surprise ? 
 To him the answer obvious appear'd ; 
 And since that wall defied both sap and mine, 
 The gate, by God unused, their turn might serve 
 To God's destruction since He came not forth ; 
 If no egress were made ingress might be 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 91 
 
 Obtain' d, then " Hasten ! " all his regents cried; 
 " Jehovah in his shame or glory seek ! " 
 
 Like forests tempest-shaken, was the sound 
 Of preparation ; terrible was their tramp 
 As from the maddest impotence his hosts 
 Pass'd sanguinely unto that other means : 
 Like a stream overswoU'n by hurricane 
 Fed full unto and over all its banks ; 
 Like Oronoko from his sources come, 
 Shaking all chaos on eddying they come, 
 Their uncouth beasts rolling as roll gnarl'd oaks 
 Torn up and driven in wild career along : 
 Then gonfalons shone high ; but, ! what praise 
 Of shining splendour shall depicture that 
 Refulgent portal when it burst on sight 
 In frontispiece magnificent : Edfou, 
 Pride of Egyptian Kings, where sphynxes sate 
 Guarding the gorgeous entrance, to some slave 
 From Abyssinia would seem divine ; 
 Or that grand door of Luxor which shut in 
 Veil'd Isis from the vulgar rout of men j 
 Much more astonish'd were the rebels at 
 That inwrought, lustrous, pearly, beauteous, gate : 
 Graven on its transom in right royal style 
 Behold, to them, an untranslated word, 
 " Judah " they read, erasure in their thoughts, 
 " Lucifer " substituted to its place : 
 No speck disfigured that exceeding work 
 
92 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Of the Great Architect : through all the turns 
 
 Of fretwork to divinity, no line 
 
 Betray'd irregularity ; where touch 
 
 Slightest produced the necessary effect, 
 
 Or where the boldest chiseling was required, 
 
 'Twas passing perfect ; high within the wall 
 
 Proportionably set, by fair degrees 
 
 Ascending, like that tower on Sennaar's plain 
 
 Which God Himself from heaven came down to see : 
 
 As truly chosen was its compass wide. 
 
 So that the chariot of the Sovereign Lord, 
 
 Insquared to wonder, ample passage found, 
 
 With hosts enough to cope the rebels there : 
 
 Lucifer sickening turns ; from point to point 
 
 In all their length, and depth, and breadth, he glanced 
 
 His hugely formidable artilleries : 
 
 If hope be with sincerity invoked, 
 
 Hope rarely fails an answer ; it return' d, 
 
 Nor unreluctant, to his ready heart ; 
 
 Convergent to that portal they were wheel'd 
 
 Innumerable ; served to amplitude 
 
 By all the Cyclops of the angel race : 
 
 Expert were they beyond the arm of those 
 
 Who forged the noted thunderbolts to life. 
 
 And handed to omnipotence its dread : 
 
 Thus close arranged, no one proposed to knock 
 Por entrance at that portal ; it was shut 
 Past opening to civil words from them ; 
 
THE CHKISTIAD. 93 
 
 To force also it seems as firmly shut : 
 
 No longer tarry they but, at a signal, 
 
 Precipitate the bodied ruin rush'd 
 
 Forth of his engines with such deafening roar 
 
 As Mulciber confounded, fire and flash 
 
 Eclipsing all the firmament, the walls 
 
 Wrapping in shaggy shade were they not gone 
 
 To an infernal wreck, spires, pinnacles, 
 
 Turrets, the gate, and all ; for hailing down 
 
 Enormous comets with a crash descend. 
 
 Back too upon a high o'er-crested wave 
 
 Oceans of lava drove involving all 
 
 Who that great train with fire and fury served ; 
 
 Rudest disorder rules as they urge back 
 
 Down-treading the rearmost to dust and mire : 
 
 Appalling was the scene, whole squadrons lay 
 
 Perishing under foot of their own horse ; 
 
 Had they been furiously charged by Heaven, 
 
 Their pride were hardly so abased like that ; 
 
 Those struck by the undying worm himself 
 
 Such shrieks refrain'd, though writhing like big snakes 
 
 When dLsembowel'd ; or, like poison'd men : 
 
 Thus to their cost was proved what tools they used 
 
 Were not one-sided only ; their own throats 
 
 Retributively cut by them two-edged : 
 
 So 'tis with treason since it first began,^ 
 
 Sooner or late : rebellow'd then the heavens, 
 
 The seas serenest wrinkled, the abodes 
 
94 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Of all the gods shook like a trembling' leaf: 
 
 From all their halls they come ; the banquet left, 
 
 Left the myrtillian bowers and flowery meads, 
 
 The shining mountains and the valleys' peace : 
 
 Of all the twelve circles of paradise 
 
 No angel tarried but made haste to God, 
 
 Their wings upflung in prevalence, their lyres 
 
 Unheeded, and their hands as well uplift 
 
 In solemn conjuration, crying aloud 
 
 " Lord God, the angels' life, unseen because 
 
 No creature can behold Thee and endure 
 
 The vision of Thy glory ; unto us 
 
 Thy servants, ! incline, hear Thou our prayer : 
 
 hear us where Thou sittest throned on high 
 
 Jehovah j from that strange unseemly noise 
 
 Unto Thy holy court of praises driven : 
 
 Shrined in immensity, eternal space 
 
 To Thee is equal ; it no measure hath 
 
 To the Almighty Ruler over space. 
 
 Infinity, and the eternal all ; 
 
 Then graciously admit us nearer to 
 
 Thy loving power or let the pearly gate, 
 
 Lord ! seem farther from our anguish'd ears : 
 
 The angels would conjure Thee ! Undisturb'd, 
 
 UnrufBed One, a fear upon us comes 
 
 Unto the banishment of every thought. 
 
 Save what we now unitedly express : 
 
 Down from so high an exaltation come, 
 
THE CHBISTIAD. 95 
 
 Or, Divinity of Power ! lift up 
 
 All Thy adorers nearer to the Lord, 
 
 And rule to judgment on His foes dismay'd :" 
 
 Importunate, the angels thus call down 
 Correction for the troublers of their peace ; 
 Upon the knee pray'd they nor to this hour 
 Were risen if th' Almighty had not heard 
 Their supplication granting all they pray'd : 
 The great archangel who before declared 
 Unto the then-rememb'ring suppliants war 
 To the rebellious hosts, alone stood up 
 Before the Holy Presence ; awed was he, 
 His looks unto the ground cast lowly down, 
 His prayerful hands devoutly on his breast, 
 Covering with careful hands his failing feet : 
 Then out from the empyrean blue of heaven 
 God's habitation, through the more-than-gold 
 Sapphirine domes high vaulted, round the walls 
 Of crystal, o'er the turquois floors, apast 
 Diamond balustrades, glass-polish'd doors 
 O'erstudded with inestimable gems, 
 Pillars, and obelisks, shaking the high 
 Glittering cupolas, skied aisles, and bastion'd 
 Em'rald recesses from the base unto 
 The topmost towers of light, articulate forth 
 Assenting answer comes, " Michael," said God, 
 (What holy pride was his thus to be named !) 
 " Prince of archangels, representing prince 
 
yo THE CHHISTIAD. 
 
 Of powers, thrones, dominions ; Gloriel, prince 
 Of God's right hand, co-equal might thine own ; 
 Outside our battlemented kingdom go 
 With angels equalling what rebels there 
 Assail the Supreme right with plagues of fire 
 Of flood and fury ; lo, the whole are yours :" 
 
 God said, the heavens all tremble while God spoke : 
 His angels hastening to cast their crowns 
 Most rev'rently before Jehovah down, 
 Sung " King Eternal, Righteous, Just, and True, 
 Perpetual, Glorious, Dreadful, Mighty King, 
 Honour and praise, dominion and power. 
 For ever and for ever are Thine own 
 And to eternity Lord shall be ! 
 God of the just, thou Light of lights, before 
 All worlds in highest bliss supremely throned. 
 Thy holy Name of love and fear we laud 
 And with consenting voice God's sceptre own : 
 To Thee alike the past and present are 
 With the to-come : Omnipotent art Thou, 
 Omniscient, Omnipresent, Infinite, 
 And Absolute beyond the chance of change : 
 From everlasting the Eternal King, 
 Above imagination Thou, Lord, 
 Reignest, Jehovah, world without an end ! " 
 
 Thus the bless'd angels hymn'd God's praises high; 
 In all things giving praises first to Him 
 Through whom they lived and all their being joy'd; 
 
THE CHRI8TIAD. 97 
 
 The heavens were more beatified while thej 
 
 His sacred praises sung who heareth prayer; 
 
 Most solemn was the strain, but praise like that 
 
 Hallow'd the angels to Almighty God : 
 
 To vindicate his Lord then Michael glows ; 
 
 Gloriel also in obedience to 
 
 The Sovereign choice, impatiently prepares ; 
 
 In radiant haste rose Hadi-iel, soordain'd 
 
 With them unto the honour of command; 
 
 Their silver trumpets sound for such conflict 
 
 As marshall'd hosts in battle must expect, 
 
 Majesty outraged in their glowing hearts : 
 
 When Athens was assail'd her noble sons 
 
 Scarce waited for their armour, snatching up 
 
 What arms were handiest as from all their games, 
 
 Glad feasts, and sacrifices, out they rush'd 
 
 Garlanded till Eunaeus threw aside 
 
 His wreath Nysaean for the challenged lists ; 
 
 So all the angels to enthusiasm gone 
 
 In that exciting moment, through their gate, 
 
 Instinctively from all its hinges swung. 
 
 Thrones, Powers, Dominions, Virtues, Princedoms, pour 
 
 To the resounding skies, embattling straight, 
 
 Anxiously earnest for the holy war : 
 
 When to his pomp Darius saw opposed 
 
 The Greek simplicity, profound contempt 
 
 Tickled his fancy to reviling scorn 
 
 On Alexander and his phalanx'd men, 
 
 H 
 
98 THE CHKISTIAD. 
 
 Arm'd only with a sword and that full short ; 
 Thus Lucifer confronts them, the great prince 
 Unquenchable of hate but moved to scorn, 
 While all the horror heavenly angels feel 
 Starts forth upon their countenance to see 
 Rebellion so o'erflush'd that it despised 
 The godlike hosts of victory as they came : 
 
 Short space yawn'd there between the hostile ranks. 
 The rebels porting so their several arms 
 As would ensure the groves of nard to them, 
 Their forfeited estate on high resumed ; 
 Those who o'erlorded that fuU soon o'erturn'd : 
 To banded shock of opposition fell 
 The foremost ranks without delay drove on 
 Joining the battle in a sudden shock ; 
 Clash'd then the brazen shield and shield of gold ; 
 As when the ravishers Romulean met 
 The Sabines stung to the extremest wrong 
 And bent on. all the certainties of death ; 
 So yell the Sioux and Hurons when they rush 
 Bloodthirsty forth to carnage blood and spoil, 
 As yell'd those rebel angels with the hope 
 Provocative of war in scorn of death 
 When hideous war began ; all space shook black 
 Groaning to bear the onslaught as it came : 
 Awhile both hosts remain in fearful doubt 
 Of such tremendous clash, but with recoil 
 Broad space asunder the next moment drive 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Stern eyeing one the other ; presently 
 Spurning that forced truce, again come they, 
 Contempt, rage, pain, and phrensy, at their work 
 With an uncalculating destiny : 
 
 Thus ending and renewing, worse uproar 
 And'recoUision added lightnings hreed ; 
 And rival spirits found themselves well met 
 To the amazement even of hravery ; 
 Eedouhted acts were theirs painfully felt 
 When rash Phomicorash was done to death ; 
 The first to pay that dreadful penalty 
 Of sin to justice in the book of God : 
 Eternise Tonoros Muse, who wrest 
 Out of his rebel hand the fatal sword 
 Which cleft both helmet and his skuU in twain ; 
 His bloodshot eyeballs start, their nervures snap, 
 Down on the ground he fa,lls, his plated mail 
 With heavenly ichor huedj so from a vase 
 Broken, upon the sand rare wine is lost : 
 Before his vision indistinctly swim 
 The failing pulses ; at the heart he feels 
 Unwonted icy ; his transparent skin 
 Exudes a clammy sweat ; then from his mouth 
 A spirit dabbled in the blood comes forth ; 
 Like that which Shakespeare shows by Clarence seen ; 
 As when Amphiaraus unexpect 
 Confronted Pluto, like the King of Dread 
 Starts the archgerent, quite afraid to see 
 h2 
 
100 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 So terrifying an event as that ; 
 Often was death supposed, but no one thought, 
 Though it must be unnatural, that death 
 Would be so frightful as that ghost appear'd. 
 
 Then as a princedom ruling, Azazeel 
 Upon the flank of Nisroch fell so sudden 
 That thousands and ten thousands lick the dust ; 
 Ten thousands more stricken to panic fly. 
 Like spectred shadows through the boundless void. 
 Their wings outstretch'd impossibly to fly ; 
 Seized his artillery, on Nisroch that, 
 Turn'd by God's angels, vomits forth dismay ; 
 Destruction rises on his flappy wings 
 Before the thicken'd thunder breathing deep ; 
 Vap'rous it rises in the darken'd cloud 
 Glorying to survey the myriads fall'n. 
 Resolving to have million millions more 
 To the full satiation of his jaws ; 
 Basilisk-eyed look'd that, nine-claw'd of hand, 
 Clutching his every claw intent to grasp 
 The very inward parts of all who fall ; 
 Once down confused he went, half overpower'd 
 In mists like midnight, but soon, lo, behold ! 
 Again Destruction comes quite overjoy' d, 
 Eesuming all his multiplied force 
 Over the carcases death-made to him : 
 
 Then baleful Battle in a whirlpool caught 
 And rampt Resolve together frantic fought 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 101 
 
 With an eternity of opposition, 
 
 And such antipathy, as nothing; slaked : 
 
 As time unto man's life proportion'd here 
 
 Is reckon'd, though it seem absurd to man, 
 
 Clio declares that what to us were full 
 
 One hundred years those dreadful armies fought, 
 
 Eeckon'd upon the horologe of heaven 
 
 Some two, not lengthen'd but the briefest, hours j 
 
 Thus to compare with little things the great 
 
 Beyond man's comprehension, brings the vast 
 
 Into such ambiguity and doubt 
 
 As Ignorance and Scorn will always gibe ; 
 
 This is our difficulty so to ope 
 
 The understanding unto such extremes 
 
 Of life and action as the angels show'd 
 
 That memorable day when in the seas 
 
 Of space their myriads, like sea-horses struck. 
 
 Or shoals of the leviathan harpoon' d. 
 
 Amongst the icebergs of their chaos raged ; 
 
 Forlorn rage they where Nisroch shouts to storm. 
 
 To fury from the dragon which he strides; 
 
 God-like drove he ; so Agamemnon, king- 
 
 Of-men, rose up and drove when Zeus gave 
 
 The signal ; Azazeel before it yields, 
 
 Retreat is next to that determined look 
 
 Which down upon the holy angels like 
 
 A iiery deluge swept ; but courage comes 
 
 Into his noble heart ; he that repels. 
 
102 
 
 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 And in a ruining retort whole ranks 
 
 Gores through with grisly gaps : then steel transpierced, 
 
 And maces broke, crush' d, ground, their every bone ; 
 
 Blood seethed the thirsting visionary steel : 
 
 His armies all down-trod or falKng, ah, 
 
 The recreant regent with his banner flees, 
 
 Retired they call it who to death were shamed ; 
 
 But as a traveller benighted sees 
 
 A pistol at his head, then the archprince 
 
 Lucifer saw his flight, dilating up 
 
 With passion doubly pang'd such flight to see ; 
 
 The sign of battle he at once renews 
 
 Resistance trampled down his feet beneath ; 
 
 Nisroch to sense and reason is recall' d 
 
 By what exceeded any scorpion sting, 
 
 The loud reproach of that superior lord ; 
 
 With feat of arms he turns to act which boasts 
 
 Equal with any action on that day ; 
 
 For desperation may be so wrought up 
 
 To courage in appearance as shall shake 
 
 The faith of angels and impose on men. 
 
 Over the whirlwind waste Resentment rag-ed 
 To the collision of his iron wings ; 
 Bright burns the concave vault of flying darts 
 Where the chimseras hover overhead ; 
 Swimming in giddy mode, malignant, wild. 
 All inarticulate from fury, they 
 Make at the holy angels, vainly make ; 
 
THE CHMSTIAD. 103 
 
 Finding o'er them no power, out they all scream'd 
 
 To an insensate madness, one another 
 
 Tormenting', harrowing, to the extreme ; 
 
 Glared they out then like the envenom'd sprites 
 
 Which on the marrow of the dead grew fat j 
 
 A-forth come they, whity of wing, wall-eyed. 
 
 Rising in glairy might, swarming like shags. 
 
 Seagulls, kites, gornets, vultures, among birds ; 
 
 As jackals, oats, hysenas, troop'd to death ; 
 
 Transformed Glaucus look'd not half so vUe, 
 
 Nor half so horrid was the monster sent 
 
 By an indignant god to frighten Troy ; 
 
 Through boiling seas of shapeless depth they plough. 
 
 Often in most disastrous sort fall'n down 
 
 On numbers underneath strewn all along ; 
 
 As waves are strewn down-beaten by the spouts 
 
 Which old sea-faring men suppose may sink 
 
 Their vessel and themselves into the deep. 
 
 Or snatch them in a whirlwind miles on high. 
 
 Many aside withdraw to death undone, 
 Yet more remain'd behind than tongue can tell. 
 Tameless as hurricane as restless too. 
 In war's career revolved perpetual round ; 
 Eagerly they with cruel death contend, 
 Either to cram th' insatiate monster more 
 With others, or to fall themselves to death ; 
 Phantoms death-like rush forth, livid their skin. 
 Corpse-like endued ; cold were their hollow cheeks. 
 
104 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 If cheeks were tiey, horn'd were their eyes, if eyes ; 
 Like what some lizards have emball'd as large 
 Or larger than their ugly toaded head : 
 Sharp as the frosts of Iceland in the reign 
 Of the long sunless day, when all the lakes 
 Freeze to the brittle clearness of the moon, 
 They flit about with those who died away ; 
 Before God's angels they as fogs disperse 
 Ceasing existence ; Death too ceased from his 
 Reality and invisible became 
 To the immortal armies from on high. 
 
 Michael then in full blaze his signal flinging 
 Out on the watchful skies summon'd his gods, 
 God's then indeed were his ; fast as their wings 
 Could bear them from those fields of disarray 
 Multitudinous they gather round that chief; 
 Deep silence rules while the archangels through 
 The order'd ranks send all-observant eyes ; 
 Triumphant gods look they, uninjured from 
 The rival powers of evil which were fought ; 
 Their great brigandines and habergeons, pults. 
 And other vauntful armature of war. 
 Not one disparaged unto any hurt ; 
 Victoriously stood they, in form, mind, spirit. 
 Invulnerable found ; Omnipotence 
 Ordain'd th' imperishably natural worth 
 Of goodness; the converse of that just law 
 Made evil, rawness, rottenness, relax. 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 105 
 
 This the Rebellious wofuUy had proved, 
 
 Their shapes obnoxious to the slightest touch, 
 
 To utter nakedness their soul reduced, 
 
 From vigour failing as a stream dried up : 
 
 In master-mail those angels shone full-arm' d, 
 
 The trusty shield of faith, the temper'd sword 
 
 Of God's most blessed Spirit, and the bright 
 
 Helmet of His salvation were their own ; 
 
 What were the gifts which Hercules received 
 
 From his Olympian patrons to such arms ? 
 
 Minerva, Hermes, Vulcan, or Apollo, 
 
 Although they own'd so much, boast none like them : 
 
 Each to the wearer's rank was well devised, 
 
 But all equal in strength, no angel who 
 
 Issued from heaven was lost or even hurt, 
 
 AJthough against the rebels nought avail'd 
 
 But rebel weapons ; they were harden'd to 
 
 That armoury of God, therefore against 
 
 Themselves were turn'd what had been edged for God 
 
 Whose armies snatch'd or wrest sufficient force 
 
 To urge such sorrow unto so much greed 
 
 On their opponents as consumed their strength 
 
 To wailing, darkness, ashes, and disgrace ; 
 
 From all its fleshly pride and boastful lust 
 
 Worn down to bitterness of rage and shame. 
 
 Observe those shining hosts contrasted with 
 The shatter'd ranks opposed upon that field 
 Of infinite restraint and penal wrath ; 
 
106 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Flamingo to the discomfiture of pride 
 And raging- for the punishment of wrong ; 
 No plume upon their head that waved to grace 
 Was ruffled, though their plumes were light as air 
 And far more hrilliant than the Hawaiian 
 From glossy feathers excellently made ; 
 Or than the princes of Circassia boast 
 Upon their gala or their wedding day : 
 
 With these all through the dark and chasmy air 
 The three archangels irresistibly drove 
 In column'd grandeur regularly on ; 
 Like rolling billows in the stormy sea 
 Of Biscay, down the holy angels roll. 
 Sounding as midnight winds do gravely sound 
 Amongst Siberian pines to howling wolves ; 
 Cocytus so reproves gainsaying ghosts 
 To sound silent as terror can procure ; 
 Those mortal adversaries then engage 
 In all th' immortal force which appertains 
 To beings burning like intensest fire 
 And gifted with the thought and power of God : 
 Fell the Rebellious fought, to science true 
 As wit invented by necessity 
 With all the elemental lore of thought 
 And knowledge that the angels had could make ; 
 They smote, pass'd, met, rose, bent, or moved aside 
 With agile grace unto dexterity, 
 Extremest readiness, and matchless strength ; 
 
THE CHEISTIAI). 10? 
 
 The Solymseans, fiercest of mankind, 
 In after-times affected this to do ; 
 Too dangerous to the common race of man, 
 They were extirpated in the event ; 
 The rebel angels fight to terror sold 
 But vainly fight, or with no glad result 
 When Acarynthimos broke in the rank. 
 Cohort on cohort going to the ground : 
 
 Then was Togarmah smitten by Zarael, 
 He also smote his dragon to the gloom 
 Eternal, all his blasting eyes tum'd black ; 
 While of his harness they would spoil him, Baal 
 Bewilder'd saw and dash'd resistless on 
 Unto the rescue; all his fiction'd front 
 On fire, flung down his shield, a passage he 
 Ploughs like a broad and shining zone of light 
 Following some huge creature through the deep ; 
 Immense is the commotion, all the waves 
 On heap such urgent progress to oppose, 
 Rising on high to dash him far away, 
 Indignant at his passion bulk and power : 
 Phrymour in aiming at a dragon, which, 
 Thrust through the omoplate extinct fell down, 
 To Baal deals an unexpected wound ; 
 The armies of Togarmah scattering gone 
 Like buffaloes through the savannah when 
 Their shaggy leader falls, Baal to them 
 Fain would himself have added in that plight 
 
108 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 But his immortal hate and shame forbid, 
 Though drench'd in gore was he ; loud then the voice 
 Stentorian he raised, ApoUyon comes 
 With wrath really awaken'd at his speed ; 
 No more should any trifle, Hope ran riot 
 With Fear, and Madness shriek'd their charge to see ; 
 Sped the barb'd darts and the impetuous lance 
 Stronger than the Pelleean, or those lances 
 Which with such labour from the iron-trees 
 Of Cambody are shaven unto war ; 
 Segments of fire their well-used faulchions seem. 
 Avenging bars and bolts glance swift as light, 
 Disks of whole mountains wrought down-crushing come ; 
 Their gauntlets crash resounding, shields on shields 
 Shock-broke on one another clashing sound 
 'Till murderous Rout to Fear and Pity hastes, 
 Perdition waving o'er the three her wings : 
 Enchantment fills the air to thickness brew'd. 
 Death-birds like flitter-mice with glee deathfnl 
 Flap all their raven lengths to mocking dread. 
 Mewing or howling, barking, whickering, round. 
 Fiercer than Kalmuc dogs, or cub-robb'd bears, 
 Or out-braved ounces, though the rebels are. 
 Like dirt before the ploughshare see them driven 
 Over that field of desolation wide; 
 God's armies then acknowledgment received. 
 The enemy uprooted in his pride 
 And left to wither on the furrow'd space : 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 109 
 
 Then hippogryphs unfurl'd the wing or web 
 Wanting, th' unfinish'd things ! aloft to fly ; 
 From all their hideous nostrils mouths and eyes 
 Flame pours to fear until the blast of war 
 Up, like autumnal leaves, snatch them on high ; 
 Who rode them felt their armour strangely fused 
 When back to chaos, o'er-surcharged, they fell 
 In agony, every nerve unstrung, 
 And all their members melting as in fire. 
 
 His ample count'nance fix'd, Apollyon oft 
 Advanced to the deliverance ; reared aloft 
 He bore heroically through the ranks 
 Which seem'd like swathes before the summer scythe 
 Ready to fall and die before that arm ,- 
 Lancing he drove thousands aside, in might 
 Impetuous pass'd, arresting as he pass'd 
 The hostile tramp of all the legion'd war ; 
 In his entirety of strength put forth 
 Thus he repell'd incalculable force ; 
 If the fall'n angels power like that possess. 
 What attributes are His who made them strong 
 To all but the infinity of force ! 
 To that, again, what are they but as motes 
 Floating mere atoms in the sunbeam ? sent 
 Out from the ocean of eternal light 
 Unmindful of such small inconsequence. 
 
 Some god from the WalhaUa charging down 
 Upon the Amazonians, look'd like him ; 
 
110 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Whole armies reeling to-and-fro as drunk 
 Half-dead to apprehension, almost fear : 
 Up with the plectrum ! no more Lydian airs 
 Equalling only Homer's ! iron strings 
 Twang to his memory who sweated blood 
 Over the slain determinately gone 
 In all the dread magniiicence of war, 
 Panoplied in an irresistless power 
 Wrought to the height of horror and alarm : 
 A ghastly train behind ApoUyon goeth 
 Thirstful for blood of more etherial gust 
 And richer than the fallen angels yield : 
 Whence the arch-anarch ruled he look'd and saw 
 Apollyon to applause of pride and power ; 
 Before him clamour rose to clamour fused : 
 Here chieftains rally to compelling arms, 
 There lock'd-in legions are at once let out, 
 Those trodden down unto their feet are holpen ; 
 Red Lightnings flash to see it. Thunder growls 
 To purple blackness at the great exploit ; 
 So Tydeus fought but fought with more success. 
 The Thebans mostly slain ; Hippomedon 
 Fought as superbly in the human way ; 
 Death scornfully he passes as defied 
 Unto contempt that might reviling seem 
 Were it not absolute to speechlessness ; 
 Rampious he look'd around, his pathway straight 
 Is vacant ; none could queU him ; Sapharon 
 
THE CHKISTIAD. Ill 
 
 Attempting' it, o'er him he rushes like 
 A thunderbolted arbalist of fire : 
 Thus more than strong, haughty in step he turns 
 The tide of battle, yet it general flow'd 
 Under the surface maugre this attempt 
 And Ekriel's doing ; tameless things did he 
 Beyond the most exalted thought of man. 
 Asserting to its height his godhead there ; 
 No cherubim in that grand day was found 
 More potent as with careless scorn to hate 
 He poised ten dreadful thunders in his hand 
 And lanced ten thousand missionary spears ; 
 Stalking, erect went he ; like some Georgian 
 Prince from the mountain confident of war, 
 Eeckless he bounds to battle, all his friends 
 Admiring while the foe is sore compell'd ; 
 Beloved and fear'd like that Ekriel see, 
 Shivering the space to cometary shreds, 
 Which trouble nations to this day since God 
 Left them the wanderers of the universe 
 When suns and planets were to order bound ; 
 His matriced maU rings pealing, from his casque 
 Sparkles, surpassing rich Golcondan gems. 
 Or fond philosophers' strange stones, are shed ; 
 Yet, notwithstanding, rout on routed rout 
 Grows wider with the stream, opposed not damm'd ; 
 Though baulk'd was he, Sapharon paves his path 
 With dead and dying ; fright attends his feet ; 
 
112 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 Ten lesser standards he tears down to blast 
 Of acts that tum'd our best descriptions pale. 
 
 Thus o'er continual din frequently rose 
 The sounds of anguish : when that stealthy craft 
 Sent by the States at nig-ht 'gainst Montreal 
 On lake Ontario was opposed and fired, 
 As o'er Niagara each ship swept down 
 Such sounds, such shrieks above the Fall were heard : 
 Their acts of daring well may startle truth, 
 But down the rebel armies dwindled still, 
 Until deflect a whole battallion turns 
 Reversed dyke-Hke, that battle-field indrown'd; 
 But as the towns of Flanders rush to stop 
 A night-made breach in their seawall, so rush 
 Thither the Luciferian hosts alarm'd. 
 And the two mighties spur their dragons down 
 Into the gap of danger at the mouth ; 
 Bristled was all the space, for conflict there 
 Became indeed victorious unto flood ; 
 Rueful it was to them : Apollyon saving 
 His crimson flag with difficulty, retreats ; 
 With him too Ekriel retreats where blazed 
 The symboU'd pomp and arch-rebellious Power ; 
 The thundering mace of the arcbgerent rose 
 Like Gog's or Magog's while he glared to see 
 Discomfiture put thus upon his chiefs ; 
 Ferine looks he for they his end had served 
 Without effect or ineffectually ; 
 
THE CHRISTIAD- 113 
 
 And fell to those Ambition always looks 
 
 Who disappoint or fail its coveting ; 
 
 Burning with such reproachful scorn as back'd 
 
 Those gods through all their being, swiftly pass'd 
 
 That Anarch in the worst of wrath red-hot ; 
 
 WhUe they both turn'd to see it as he pass'd 
 
 The squadrons as they iled ruthless he drove 
 
 To death and fury down, outpouring all 
 
 The vials of his wrath upon their flight ; 
 
 Unto bewilderment the armies saw 
 
 Pausing while seas of blood that Princedom shed 
 
 To slake the throat of Chaos if he could ; 
 
 Pygmaean the affrighted angels look. 
 
 Like those beyond the Bacchic Nysa in 
 
 The grove where Mab and Oberon do reign 
 
 When some swart savage unexpected falls 
 
 Upon them, their court-trains and finery, wove 
 
 Of cobwebs, grass-blade swords, and strawmote-spears 
 
 To him indifferent ; the glances of 
 
 Ruin before him went o'erthrowing all, 
 
 His steps unequall'd there even by Death ; 
 
 Chokeful were all Death's jaws until too much 
 
 Served to confound and overburden both 
 
 So ravaged the sworn son of Hamilcar 
 
 The Maccabee ravaging did the like ; 
 
 But all was wasteful work ; Cowardice found 
 
 Its executioner in him who spared 
 
 The angels that most execrable task ; 
 
114 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 His adversaries were so far relieved ; 
 
 But fear to order in some measure brought, 
 
 Unto their duty he reduced and shaped, 
 
 Though nothing reinspired, his broken hosts ; 
 
 One legion then another stops, they face, 
 
 Reform, resume, preferring to endure 
 
 God's armies rather than his more tremendous, 
 
 His dread immeasurable, infernal, wrath : 
 
 Upon that face none living dare to pause, 
 
 'Twas like his mind too awful to be seen 
 
 And far beyond perusal to the thought ; 
 
 What all his Powers together had perform'd 
 
 Sunk into insignificance compared 
 
 With his astonishing achievement ; when 
 
 An arm he lifted, chaos the effect 
 
 Attended fearful, in its swift descent 
 
 Thousands to nothingness of dust down-driven : 
 
 So at the merest touch of winter, moths. 
 
 Grasshoppers, butterflies, all disappear : 
 
 Flung out to their immeasurable width 
 
 And length his mighty wings, myriads fade 
 
 Away before accelerated rage ; 
 
 Yet they were miss'd not in the multitude 
 
 Of that exceeding battle ; fathomless seas 
 
 Own no decrease though nations are o'erflow'd 
 
 And total continents for ever drown' d : 
 
 What fail'd Togarmah with the hosts which fail'd 
 
 From Nisroch's Principalities, and all 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 115 
 
 The Cherubim that lost their sense of ahame 
 To flight in terror, the Dominions own'd, 
 But now disown'd, by Baal, thereunto 
 Added, exceeding numbers none can count. 
 Scarce wanted from his sand-like hosts of war ; 
 Inconsequential was their loss to him, 
 Flush'd in the face to see their worthless dross 
 Purged off; no sooner purged than he resumes 
 The field in all its martial pomp once more : 
 
 ApoUyon marches first, wreaking his thoughts 
 To renovated hope : next Nisroch towers 
 Over his bands, like the Thessalian fix'd 
 Of intent pui-pose to expected chance ; 
 Abroad and far they wasted all their strength 
 Under that louring leader; all their front 
 Broaded to valiant opposition, these. 
 Shaking their outspread plumes to dazzling light. 
 Such weapons as Gath's giant never hiirl'd, 
 Nor even lift in thought, seizing, used so. 
 With so extreme a vigour that it dazed 
 Invulnerable spirits nigh to dread : 
 When Dejanira sent young Lichas with 
 Nessus's poison'd robe to Alcides, 
 As through the flesh into his vital parts 
 It burn'd to murder, mad from pain went he ; 
 A greater rage madden'd those hostile gods. 
 The Parcse round them, or what Parcse seem'd, 
 Tipping portended spears and arms unnamed ; 
 i2 
 
116 THE CHRI9TIAD. 
 
 Thick clouds of solid iron rend the air 
 
 While dire Alarm with putrid corpses link'd 
 
 High overhead ten scarlet armlengths flings, 
 
 Leaps up maniacally and inspired 
 
 The living arrows as down-shower'd they come : 
 
 Like vultures that upon the van of war 
 
 Flit close, anticipating ere the sun 
 
 Go down a Moody feast, ohscenest crews 
 
 Shadowy pursue with most impatient wing 
 
 The looks of all who to the effort rise, 
 
 Ready to tear out first then eat their eyes ; 
 
 Omonoros to these himself opposed 
 
 Undaunted ; all his serried legions stand 
 
 Ready to meet them with redoubled arms : 
 
 Greet the Rebellious had which caused a pause 
 
 For Nisroch upon them drove down to death 
 
 With all the dire fatality of arms ; 
 
 His dragon like the horse of Pterelas 
 
 At large, with terror upon terror runs ; 
 
 Thunder is open'd with the force of thunder, 
 
 Through seas of crimson blood the lightning shines ; 
 
 Unequall'd was that time ; then bolts red-hot 
 
 To fiiry inextinguishable hiss'd ; 
 
 Well might the ghosty races pallid rush 
 
 From that with all their tilted thoughts on space, 
 
 Enlarging to the boundlessness of fire 
 
 And all the hideosity of shame ; 
 
 Undying forth come they, blacken'd to Night ; 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 117 
 
 The battle burneth blue reflecting them 
 
 Additionally horrid where they rush ^ 
 
 Like Hecla in eruption, out-retch'd they 
 
 Blast to infinitude, with groans so deep 
 
 They pleased the witch Canace and pleased the sphynx ; 
 
 Before them numbers sufibcated fell, 
 
 While falling fleer'd at with a cruel joy ; 
 
 The worms of conscience, Kke the adders green 
 
 Of the Carnatic, wriggle through their skin ; 
 
 One uglier than the claw'd sea-cat was seen 
 
 With brassy glare to tear their fibrous heart 
 
 Though every fibre was inflinted stone. 
 
 Insensate gone as adamant and as hard. 
 
 Those who forbore all armour trusting rather 
 To the ability of mind and wings. 
 Or not anticipating such a day, 
 Tempestuous fled most dolorous to see ; 
 Those who chimseras rode fled after them 
 To tie affliction of the total air ; 
 Adramelec's and Moloch's hosts to them, 
 All madden'd add themselves a general heap. : 
 Calliope, the worn-out string renew 
 And nerve immortal verse once more for us ! 
 Gorgons with harrowing voice, sore-anguish'd rocs. 
 Their close-clench'd teeth at horrid work, each roc 
 An Atlas wing'd, spiritual monster-dogs, 
 Them dogs to call which made the Brocken small. 
 Eld eagle-sprites of Imaus, the extinct 
 
118 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 Great Australasian camel-birds of which 
 
 Geologists make such astounding tales ; 
 
 Such like, beyond th' imaginings of men 
 
 Anent the earthborn broods, or those which knights 
 
 Of prowess sought and found in Teuton times. 
 
 Or those more monstrous which Moslemen fear 
 
 In Eblis' halls to meet, were elves grotesque 
 
 In presence of these supernatural shapes ; 
 
 Audacious up rose they, animated 
 
 With fury and impregnate hatred nursed 
 
 From its conception to the ready birth 
 
 Of all confusion, wrathfiilness, and ire : 
 
 Both right and left irregular they form. 
 
 Like goggling giants by the giants got 
 
 Their propagators dwarfs : they gloam, they glide 
 
 Gangrening jealousy to baleful dread : 
 
 Like Pindus, Athos, or like Bryx and 
 
 The Appennines all added, they appear, 
 
 Tentacled like the crusted polypi 
 
 Which in the gulf of Smyrna once were seen ; 
 
 Uglier than the kraken in the sea 
 
 Of Norway ; and more dreadful than the clouds 
 
 Which to a maniac appear like iiends 
 
 Sent for his sinful miserable soul : 
 
 When they articulate it tingles through 
 
 The auricles, beyond what brain can bear 
 
 Unto amazement ; that none understood. 
 
 Their speech was all so passing hard and deep ; 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 119 
 
 Thus the old Temanite describes the voice 
 
 Of a dread vision in the dead of night, 
 
 Fear falling on Eliphaz, till his hair 
 
 Stood up on end to the distracted sense. 
 
 His joints unloosen'd on the trembling bones : 
 
 All these were smitten in their turn, their limbs 
 
 Unlawful added to the lawful spoils 
 
 Of war ; as if rhinoceroses, saurs. 
 
 Big batrachidian monsters, crocodiles, 
 
 Evets, and all the reptiles earth has borne 
 
 From the beginning were collected there, 
 
 Cut slash'd and slaughter'd in a common heap : 
 
 As the quick matin cuts the shades of night 
 
 Shining away before Aurora's feet. 
 
 The holy angels channell'd them to light. 
 
 In that resistless war driven roadlike through : 
 
 Then with his dazzling helm, o'ertopp'd to eyes 
 
 More beautiful than Argus', though the queen 
 
 Of Ida loved them in her peacock bird, 
 
 Came Solyphron with all his beamy hosts, 
 
 Millions of angels, driving them like muck ; 
 
 Together in forlomest sort they hew. 
 
 Spear, cut, slash, drive, them down, woful inmass'd ; 
 
 The harpies, last resisting, fled the last, 
 
 Adramelec and Moloch close behind ; 
 
 Swords, hangers, maces, bolts, spears, arrows, stones. 
 
 Countless they hold and use, thrust, speed, dash, fling : 
 
 So comets scatter kiUing fire, frost, rain, 
 
120 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Drought, deluge, pestilence, pock, woe, and death, 
 
 Through all the loaded spheres when they retreat : 
 
 Had these prevail'd, for thee heavenly maid ! 
 
 I vainly call'd ; as vainly for the way 
 
 To heaven from this benighted world enquired ; 
 
 These amaranths and asphodellian flowers 
 
 For nightshade, hemlock, nettles, then exchanged ; 
 
 Our robes whiter than Zemblan snow, were then 
 
 Black to the blackness of Illyrian pitch ; 
 
 Blacker yon firmamental skies appear'd : 
 
 Who this commemorative chaunt attend, 
 
 Hierarchal gods, our auditors, confess 
 
 Then our possessions hung, the whole, in doubt ; 
 
 The silvery fountains where so oft we lave 
 
 In flower-reflecting waters to the sweets 
 
 Of a celestial banquet, all the high 
 
 And shining palaces that now are ours, 
 
 Our crowns of glorious brightness, our estates 
 
 On hill, in vaUey, all had then been lost ; 
 
 What consequences on that contest shook ! 
 
 Adramelec though thousands 'gainst him urged, 
 
 With all his might retorted arms more famed 
 
 Than were the Gnossian ; whistling, whirring, broad. 
 
 Bristling, and bloody, ten-times pointed arms ; 
 
 These intercepting, back the angels drove 
 
 Eazing his crest, rending his corset, tearing 
 
 His baldric, thongs, belts, cuishes, cincture, greaves ; 
 
 In goes his helmet bulged, his strong cuirass 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 121 
 
 And royal robe they shamefully entreat : 
 With a consummate science wrought to rage, 
 Moloch, now high, now low, the victors chafes; 
 His faulchion blazes through the kindHng skies, 
 And far he scatters wheresoe'er it blazed ; 
 Like suns burst out of darkness into day. 
 
 Below, on grounded chaos, millions fall 
 Afresh on wounded Baal's pride of war ; 
 Implacably he orders war to death 
 Gashing and hewing all that hew he could. 
 Though drench'd in blood and reeling from his wounds : 
 To all the bent of fury on fought he. 
 Gone to the dreadlessness of woe and pain ; 
 So a grand monument half ruin'd rears 
 O'er its bombarded city, proudly high, 
 Scarce yielding that to fire refused to time. 
 That fire more fatal than a thousand years. 
 
 Of Nisroch's armies few survived the hail 
 Shot incandescent ; special vengeance fell 
 From Lucifer upon ApoUyon's hosts 
 Faint-hearted ; upon Ekriel's death he dealt ; 
 But deadly opposition numbers waged 
 From out the centre of the vast collapse 
 Which their impairment gradually forced 
 Before the prowess of that famous day : 
 Then Ephateen rose mighty till the hosts, 
 Chariot, horse, foot, on either side, with all 
 Their banners levied came in earnest on : 
 
122 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 All the rebelling Thrones affluent rose 
 
 Emulous for the last attempt to be 
 
 The outrageous, fronting, foremost, foe to God ; 
 
 All the rebellion was in motion put 
 
 To the intensitum of hate, pride, death : 
 
 So the great Maelstrom from but slight beginning. 
 
 With the flood tide from Logoden to might 
 
 With violent rapidity is increased. 
 
 Swallowing aU that come within the whirl : 
 
 The ten-wing* d Seraphim by Pharnaspine 
 
 Are regularly marshall'd ; Jenrosar 
 
 And Ophathron command the willing Powers ; 
 
 To Myttilon all the Dominions look ; 
 
 Upon a high triumphal arch in heaven 
 
 Their names in characters of light appear : 
 
 the exciting theme ! Urania, say 
 Who dare attempt it with a harp profane 
 When the Orphean lyre is much too rude? 
 Symphonious tune for us, else I deserved 
 What the presumptuous Thracian suffer' d, or 
 The wretched chance of the Eleian field : 
 
 Thus sweeping battle join'd mightily jarr'd. 
 Conquest in far perspective to the one 
 Army, God's approbation waits the other. 
 Sufficient motives for tremendous war. 
 Shame, rage, and death eternal, at their back 
 If Lucifer to a submission fell ; 
 That all impossible, then conflict high 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 123 
 
 Assail'd the hosts of Haraphon made fierce : 
 When Pelion on Ossa high was piled 
 Unto Olympus, the astounding voice 
 Of Triton put the giants in a fright ; 
 Much more the shouting Haraphon would fright 
 When the resistless wrack came upon him, 
 Guttural groans of blood and death forced out : 
 Now rules appalling noise ; anon rules wide 
 More than appalUng silence ; Chaos then 
 With throes jEtnaean sorely look'd convulsed : 
 Strange engines volley counter vollies back. 
 War rattling in succession back to war ; 
 Charge and recoil, rally and rout, succeed 
 To hopeful victory and fear of fate. 
 In seven-fold eminency threaten'd then; 
 They press and part with an exceeding scorn 
 And hue of cheek that passes earthly paint, 
 What no immortal limner ever drew. 
 Beyond the power of angels to depict. 
 And all beyond the tongue of man to tell : 
 As in the Tempest's teeth the Rainbow smiles, 
 God's radiant angelry celestial smile 
 Though bent on retribution hardly task'd : 
 The privilege of Virtue is to ride 
 Calmly the storm, firmly to tread on asps 
 And then to kill them with unruffled brow ; 
 Thus while the rebel gods smote wild at them, 
 His angels smiling gain'd the cause of God. 
 
124 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Thus hour by hour, which seera'd eternal to 
 All the decreasing crowd, their care increased, 
 Grinding their g^ums, fixing their glassy eyes 
 To the irregularly pulsate hfe : 
 Up from his feast Despair full sated rose 
 Like Andes towering ; alternate fits 
 Apoplexitical across his face 
 Farcied pursue each other to amaze : 
 He breathed, 'twas like the fire-impregnate breath 
 Of Samiel which tokens death in life : 
 With him was Death, but what was Death to him ! 
 Shaking and shaping half the circle round. 
 Fiercer than Python of the Delphic plain : 
 Thus the rebellious squares to failure go 
 In seas of lightning which came spouting forth 
 From his inebriated. eyes, as whales 
 Spout frantical commotion through the waves ; 
 Then heavy on the axles chariots creak'd 
 As cumber'd or unhung ; the rattling cars 
 Stop grinding ; those who drove them drop the rein 
 While all their steeds to stone are petrified ; 
 Waved then the sword no more, or waved its last 
 Time shining ; blades than the Toledan sharper. 
 All undervalued to the ground are cast 
 Or scornful broken ; lifted bolts remain 
 Unto the lifter ; knotted maces sink 
 In the intention ; shafts abortive feel. 
 Like sleet inoperative or than softer snow : 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 125 
 
 Death ministers to him, with snakes for hair 
 
 Fringing his face and curling o'er his breast 
 
 To horrid bushiness a living beard ; 
 
 The deathless Fury with infernal ire 
 
 Arming Adrastus look'd somewhat the like ; 
 
 Eternal Death by him was much enhanced, 
 
 Reduplicated like a doubled tide 
 
 Ebbing and flowing daily ninety times ; 
 
 O'er rocks, hiUs, vales, ensanguined on sweep they, 
 
 Or backward fall like unsupported seas 
 
 When Michael stays a hand from weariness ; 
 
 Unto the skies spasmodically risen 
 
 The scene is flooded as the angels strike, 
 
 To drearer deepness now behold them sunk 
 
 The battle intermitted from fatigue : 
 
 Prepare for slaughter ! underneath their feet 
 
 Writhe millions, irresistibly down-trod ; 
 
 Those who withstood paled white, while Hate and Scorn 
 
 Clasping fought desolate : so men have fought 
 
 After the plough o'er hearth and home was gone : 
 
 Then the slouch'd seraph Zabrash flapp'd his wings, 
 As doth the condor over lesser birds 
 Peruvian ; his pinions widely woof 'd 
 As Victory's own, he with emotion none 
 May ever tell went forth j aside, away 
 He scatters plashing on plated and mail'd ; 
 A labour'd light around presently raised. 
 Therein, illuminated high, he wars ; 
 
126 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Kept festival the winds until to fire 
 
 Of rain driven out before him whity-black 
 
 With'ring into a hideous spasm sunk they, 
 
 The vortex of their being whirl'd away ; 
 
 Happy were all beyond his reach of arm : 
 
 Impassion'd unto daring, like a Flame 
 
 Unchain' d, or the outrageous Deep, seems he ; 
 
 Or like the will-wing'd sky-compelling bird 
 
 As Percnos known when o'er the world he darts 
 
 All the Olympian thunderbolts of fear : 
 
 As if renown had been bespoke for him. 
 
 Intoxicated to the cup of hope 
 
 He tramps irregular: whole cohorts he 
 
 Packs in, hke hinds at bay their antlers thought 
 
 Inutile, all their haunches bathed in sweat : 
 
 So drove Pholeus, so PizaiTO drove 
 
 Egregious numbers : vast disquiet came 
 
 To all who felt the sweeping of that arm, 
 
 But in the heat and chances of the field 
 
 That, like the arms of his co-regents, fell 
 
 To the paralysis of helplessness 
 
 When harmful darkness wrapt him in the shroud : 
 
 To his deliverance quadrated speeds 
 Prompt Haraphon, o'erbearing and consuming 
 What intercepts his rage where Zabrash lay 
 Smitten to loss of sense : who hemm'd him in 
 Those armed terrors stand not ; back urge they 
 Millions combating in quarters close 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 127 
 
 With all their clashing swords on frightful terms : 
 But the lost ground regain' d, with raking rout 
 Those rehels are reversed, batter'd and broken, 
 Dash'd dying down in all their height of pride : 
 Zabrash, worse wounded by abortive arms, 
 Haraphon leaves behind : again he turns. 
 Once more for that proud seraph : rising high 
 His princely presence, fiiriously comes he 
 Foaming to all the strife immortal there : 
 Ring then resounding shields finding such tongue 
 As from his anvil ne'er Steropes drew ; 
 Their adamant is crack' d, the bosses flatten'd. 
 And all their ornaments by shock like that ; 
 Such a concussion left many for dead : 
 God's armies swerving measureless away 
 From misadventure, Zabrash so retrieved, 
 Back they disgorge, like flurried flames from out 
 A burning mountain flaming to the sun : 
 
 Then rose th' archangels, swifter than a fire 
 Reftilgent sweeping on ; his extreme side 
 Gloriel supports to right, Hadriel the left : 
 Chaos turns black, Night blacker them to see ; 
 The phantoms of the war affrighted rise. 
 The ravens from the lions of the war ; 
 The dogs of war howl as they rise to Death, 
 Despair attends Ruin to Wrath and Might 
 Cowering about them ; gory-visaged things, 
 'Till now unknown, their newt-like necks lift up 
 
128 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 For wonder ; all the general sounds of war 
 
 Shrink dread away : Then Lucifer is heard 
 
 Blaspheming Michael and his sovereign Lord : 
 
 Their feet, like bronze of Corinth, spurn the ground 
 
 As with a noble rage th' archangels speed 
 
 Indignant the blasphemer to arraign 
 
 And punish to the height of his offence : 
 
 " The Lord rebuke thee ! " Michael cried, on him 
 
 Falling with indignation ; all the hosts 
 
 Shrink back from the commotion of the clouds 
 
 As with the speed of lightning one and th' other 
 
 Infinite scorn antipathetic flash : 
 
 " The Empery of heaven is mine ! " replies 
 
 The wrathful Anarch, striking, as he replied. 
 
 All the archangels, calling them but slaves. 
 
 Deriding their performances as nought : 
 
 '.' Chai'gest thou that to us " Gloriel shouts 
 
 " That we the bliss of holy heaven prefer 
 
 To the unlicensed evil wrought by thee ? 
 
 What angels feel they know, beyond the chance 
 
 Of self-deception to ingratitude 
 
 Like thine, great criminal ! committing that, 
 
 Mis'rable is thy change to all the throes 
 
 Of that ambition which must end in death : " 
 
 Saying this, most urgently down-stroke came he ; 
 
 His fellows also struck two equal blows 
 
 Against defiance, till both thought and fact 
 
 The universal frame of matter shook 
 
THE CHRI8TIAD. 1S9 
 
 To awful anguish and as awful dread : 
 
 Upflung their pinions, their naked shapes 
 And lineaments of majesty exposed, 
 Emblazed and supereminent beyond 
 Even what seraphs knew, those mighty Four 
 Smite so that it a writ of doom should prove 
 And irremediless vanquishment to who 
 Received such horror ; thus a storm of fire 
 Their strokes elicit in perpetual fall 
 And constant whirlwinds generated there ; 
 Nectareous blood is shed as they recur. 
 Determining continually as they smite 
 More strenuously still ; immoveable 
 One as the others in the purposed end 
 Of his immortal nature and desire ; 
 A higher puissance with the instant came 
 Until the plashiness in which they fought 
 Degenerated to a fen where none. 
 So evil was the place, but them had fought ; 
 Unintermitting rage always denied 
 More fitting or a more convenient stage 
 Unto those combatants, whose armies shook 
 To see the butchery designed then 
 With such collected vengeance : what a shout 
 The rebels raise expectant of a stroke 
 That promised sure destruction, through the air 
 It went so certain ! Michael that returns, 
 And with such quick and full effect returns 
 
 K 
 
130 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 That Lucifer is stagger'd; like the tower 
 Of Pisa ; or the still more ancient tower 
 In Mona, Cherphil, he one moment reel'd : 
 Unequal the engagement ruled therefrom 
 And still more horrible : with swords they stab, 
 With spears they prick and g'oad, with cold and heat, 
 In more than Grecian forms of horror found, 
 One and the others harrow, till, off-guard, 
 The Anarch a most woful wound receives, 
 The faulchion flying from his faithless hand : 
 Then Chaos slipping leash, in bodied forms, 
 Worse than the triple-headed hound Hadean, 
 Or those which kennell'd in the bowels of Sin, 
 Rose, the rebelling angels rise with him ; 
 So Ismenos flush'd up and Zanthus rose 
 Uncovering all their secret channel-beds ; 
 Night, like the furious Cromyonian sow 
 Phaea, or like Euryale, rush'd down 
 From her remotest confine ; in an ague 
 Look'd she all frighten'd to a livid pale; 
 The miscreant witches that to bats transform 
 Themselves throughout the Scythian wilderness, 
 Spheno, and Philogave, not half so horrid 
 As that uneyed and blacken'd creature look'd ; 
 Dismay comes with her, stony as a newt, 
 Her elf-locks gnawing, spitting out ten tongues. 
 Like Pisonae's her eyes sunk deathly down ; 
 Right through her speckled skin her bones do start 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 131 
 
 Gone to emaciated waste; upon 
 
 The wings of Night like a grim vampire she 
 
 Sits wan, furr'd foul, aghast, sucking the dugs 
 
 Thrown over her high shoulders ; Terror then 
 
 Minister'd frenzy with his hairy hand; 
 
 Not over-long, a radiant light from forth 
 
 God's mountain chases all those spectral sights 
 
 Afar with orient force ; so Phoebus, Nox, 
 
 To the confusion of the owls of night : 
 
 God's armies then their sword to purpose put 
 
 Effectually, Wrath ravaging before. 
 
 Grim solitude behind enhanced on death : 
 
 Thus they upon the Luciferian arms 
 
 Flash out continually ; blaze on blaze 
 
 Expire as they return upon the charge 
 
 By the artilleries served ; still they were served. 
 
 Vast cannon, all their brutish horse remaining 
 
 To obstinacy staunch : their utmost force 
 
 Thus was adventured, with full might and main 
 
 Borne charging down, scourging the smarted ranks. 
 
 Their gay and glittering robes abroad dispread 
 
 On all the lightning ; Chaos then was ground 
 
 To dust ; as on came they in conflict, clouds 
 
 Of dust from chaos rose which mortals call 
 
 " The milky way," nebular seen by them : 
 
 Then from the ground wrenching a mountain stone 
 One hurls it quoit-like ; down pond'rous falls that 
 On Pharioch, he is crush' d ; whole legions, stood 
 K 2 
 
132 THE CHMSTIAD. 
 
 So close that the withdrawal of but one 
 
 Were fatal to them, presently go down 
 
 Before the crushing stress which follows him ; 
 
 Then to his centre Victory makes up, 
 
 Ring on concentric ring drove inside out ; 
 
 True flags are planted where the false ones waved. 
 
 Destruction to surcharge o'ercramming death : 
 
 evil time was there to Evil then, 
 
 Disgraced for ever and for ever there : 
 
 Thus with avengement adzed, those angels doom 
 Brought to a narrower degree with deeds 
 Of glory never rivall'd nor approach'd : 
 Empire unbalanced, was by them restored 
 To the extinction of its adverse hope : 
 Unto the vanquish'd what remain'd but life 
 And dismal disappointment ? but for this 
 And Herod-hatred down their arms were flung 
 And Void at their arrival driven wild : 
 The odds increasing fast, in fiendish fight 
 Malign, on-edge their teeth, around their flags 
 Beyond all desperation stiU they fought : 
 With broadest marble brow and studied step 
 Pharnaspine then advanced, his deepening eyes 
 Fix'd on the standard haught Togarmah own'd ; 
 Unutterably he looks, scattering the raiiks 
 Gather'd around that standard in support ; 
 Welter ten thousands overthrown confounded, 
 Until through peril won, down it was torn : 
 
THE CHRI8TIAD. 133 
 
 Exampsal emulating this attempt 
 Takes Nisroch's standard ; Ephateen prevail'd 
 Conquering Haraphon to all their fire j 
 Myttilon and brave Jenrosar o'ercome 
 ApoUyon and Baal; Ekriel's flag- 
 Brave Obazur obtain' d, the bearers cloven 
 Down, shatter'd all their arms, or fugitive sent. 
 
 Precipitately on the Archgerent came, 
 On either hand his enemy back-driven 
 Like billows which a well-launch'd hull heaps up 
 Before the wide compulsion sent on high : 
 Heaven's warriors stay distrustful ; blasting light 
 Uttermost putting forth as Godhead, none 
 Conceived a might so prime, not when he smote 
 All the archangels in a mode supreme : 
 Aphorotine he meets reversing, with 
 Charsathon, to his aid courageous come ; 
 Others who interposed felt deadly ill : 
 Ompthos and Areon uplift against 
 His dreadful shadow, shiver as he pass'd. 
 Invincibly expressionable his scorn ! 
 Yet they were Toparchs ; their superiors he 
 Looks for, they look for him ; but like great ships 
 Aside propell'd by all the embroil' d waves 
 They turn aside compell'd though close at hand : 
 Vainly his vagrants were undone if their 
 Dire Head remain'd such sport as that to have ! 
 It was a mystery ; God blaze out 
 
134 
 
 THE CHHISXrAD. 
 
 From Thy infinity and since but God 
 Can, make an end of this apostate lord ! 
 Such was the anxious thought of all who saw 
 Horror and rage in his grand person met : 
 
 Exandus then a desperate effort makes 
 With other mighties like himself unmatch'd; 
 Across his road strid they, the force of arms ; 
 Callous he comes, aloft both head and eyes. 
 Despised such vain opposers as, his hand 
 Raising, with twenty sullen thunders down 
 He drove upon them ; rushing tumult comes 
 Upon their awkward wings driven aside 
 To the derangement of celestial plumes, 
 Their gloss diminish'd if not brush'd away : 
 
 Thus supereminence upon his face 
 And all the destination of command. 
 Aside he whelms ten thousands ; once the gate 
 Of heaven was nearly reach'd as if that Prince 
 Of the archangels entrance still would find, 
 And he the fullest right claim'd thereunto : 
 No mythic tale of the allianced gods, 
 Roman nor other, who have fought within 
 Our limitary world, can here be named 
 Anything like it ; with the total chaos 
 To him for a great battle-field and arms 
 Appropriate to chaos, his Erinnys 
 Exceeding all the fables of a school. 
 Antagonists seeks he, as if none there 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 135 
 
 Answer'd all his imperial blood and worth : 
 Within the eyes of the archangels God 
 Seem'd verily to look: their hearts heaved up 
 Almost to tempest at the pride they saw ; 
 Terror his most obedient servant, arms 
 Sharpen' d assiduously ; arms which he 
 Collected for the moat expressive hour ; 
 Baffling they shine and brazen, some with blood 
 Reeking steam-hot, assay'd to murder proof; 
 Red missile showers of arms around his waist 
 Are girdled, prompt for use, and fasces bound ; 
 As Terror went, three more than Lyssian bows 
 He joins together at the end with twang- 
 To most unerring arrows ; o'er his head 
 The likeness of a skin with black tush'd teeth 
 Grins horribly to horror and amaze ; 
 In sable clouds enveloped, all his wings 
 With sparkling eyes endow' d, Lucifer goeth 
 Forth, in his hand a spear that many pierced ; 
 And other arms wields he beyond the sketch 
 Of all imagination ; arms which the 
 High sovereign Power-of-arms alone could wield : 
 
 Thus towering, he for final doom prepares, 
 Prodigious, plausible ; resolved if God, 
 Unto that conflict rush, to overcome 
 In his own might all heavendom and God, 
 The three archangels nought in his account ; 
 Them Vengeance guards, striding long away before : 
 
136 THE CHEI9TIAD. 
 
 Levell'd they then the wing against delay 
 
 To their impatience ; see their shining shields ! 
 
 Like what the sun to Oxmantown appears 
 
 Seen through his tuhe of more than Herschell power ; 
 
 They burn, far more intolerable behind 
 
 The dreadful bearers burn ; the seraphim 
 
 Are in their brightest fires, one, all, eclipsed : 
 
 Name no Olympic, Pythian, Alban field 
 
 Of mortal memory where with martial pomp 
 
 Mighties have met for heathendom or heaven, 
 
 At Aspramount, Damascus, in Tartish, 
 
 With Moriscoes ; nor tourneys of the court 
 
 Of Haroun-al-Raschid and Charlemagne, 
 
 Baldwin or Saladin : a sudden clap 
 
 Of thunder rolling through unclouded skies, 
 
 Beasts, birds, struck mute with fear, the next attend ; 
 
 Thus every god attends those blinding sounds 
 
 Which come to all the horror of the field 
 
 When the Archgerent and Archangels met 
 
 Unloosening iron storms what time they bide 
 
 Under the rattling shield ; then blazing forth 
 
 Resistless, deadlike, see again go they ! 
 
 Huge solid stars they hurl, whole stars at once ; 
 
 Down-fall'n with dreadful crash to scatt'ring, or 
 
 Rebounding ball-like, rocks and rivers, seas,_ 
 
 (Such as to them belong' d) spilt total out : 
 
 Again they, formidably meet, the scales 
 
 Of all their armour sounding j many a clasp 
 
THE CHKISTIAD. 137 
 
 Broken in Lucifer's ; his elastic belt 
 Loosening to tlie feel : again ; again ; 
 Contention wrought till the terrene was gone 
 To shatter'd danger : at the last upon 
 The shining spear of Michael thunder comes 
 ■ With such a dead rebound that all the hosts 
 Rebellious terrorize when the Archgerent 
 Is seen transfix'd to terror worse than theirs : 
 Impaled, he, for the moment, writhes to pain 
 When, back re-starting, all his bones seem broke 
 By the recovery ; and chaos broke ; 
 He broke dissolving, what terrene was his 
 Went like a rope of sand, falling away 
 From under that discomfiture : his gods 
 Saw and their feet confess' d the fearful change 
 Faltering, failing, stupefied to see 
 And hear what shatter'd, ended, all their hope : 
 Such dread redound to Lucifer was as death ; 
 Destruction it appear'd : down-faU'n, he goes 
 Falling as if for ever from the skies. 
 Pursued by Vengeance vehement and, oh, 
 Transcendant Horror and eternal Ail. 
 
 — &- 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 This Book opens with a denunciation ; but venal lawyers and 
 robber-priests must not detain our author, more than compen- 
 sated for their wickedness to him, from the trumps of war and 
 these immortal strains : After the confounding horror of his fall, 
 the great Archgerent gathers all the ruined angels which were at 
 hand, indulges bravery of words, raises a palace on the waste, 
 determines what next is to be done, enthrones Night, and parts 
 in search for the remaining rebels : 
 
 The holy angels rejoicing over their victory, espying Lucifer in 
 the aforesaid search speculate upon his actions. 
 
 Time. — This Book occupies the early part of the second day. 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 Hunted by dog-pack'd Perjuries ; condemn'd 
 
 Unrighteously from my early chosen home 
 
 In rural Avalon and all my heart 
 
 Lamenting loves ; in banishment like his, 
 
 As unendurable, who tuned the lute 
 
 In Tomos unto rude Sarmatian boors. 
 
 The trump I blow ; abstracted from my wrongs, 
 
 Thus celebrating His to whom I cried 
 
 Appeal, the Judge of judges who that false 
 
 And venal judge of mine wiU infamize : 
 
 Thou, too, unhallow'd thief who clutchest in 
 
 Thy simoniacal hand the sacred keys 
 
 Of heaven and hell; hell's key bumish'd so bright 
 
 That for heaven's golden ward infernal iron 
 
 Stands plausible with many, taking the one 
 
 To their eternal cost for the rusting other ; 
 
 Were not incestuous murderers to the feast 
 
 Divine encouraged whUst thou drove therefrom 
 
 Whom our dear Saviour bade ? — thou who hast clomb 
 
142 THE CHKISTIAD. 
 
 Over the wall into His fold, uncared 
 What lurks within so wolfish if thy maw 
 With meat be cramm'd, upon thy back the close- 
 Shorn fleeces of the robb'd and suffering flock ; 
 An equal punishment be thine for aye : 
 But our Galilean ! haste amain, 
 Bespeaking succour for those suffering sheep 
 Who hungering look up from him to Thee 
 Unfed ; unfed, except with windy chaff, 
 And push'd aside to that where dragons lie 
 Devouring many, pawing them unclean : 
 
 Return, return, and let mine anger pass 
 Like mists before. Calliope, thy sun 
 From the horizon rising ! Thamyras 
 Remember whom the pagan Fates struck bUnd ; 
 Others in Scio and in Albion born 
 Were persecuted unto beggary ; 
 The world of them was most unworthy found, 
 And martyrdom with such were crowns of joy : 
 On evil days and evil tongues, like them 
 I fell, with dangers compass'd all around ; 
 These eyes are clear but both my ears ai-e broke 
 Tympanic " To the prate of common men ; " 
 Muse ! I attend ; " no grievous loss is that 
 And great its compensation ; thou hast heard 
 And learnt the bases supernatural loud 
 Which all the Gods of celebration joy : 
 No pipes, but all the trumps of godlike war 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 143 
 
 Are thine : Admetus's young swains felt blest 
 
 Beyond expression ; thou art famous too ; 
 
 And more than the Plutonian wealth is thine 
 
 In the affection of a loving heart : 
 
 To heaven's and earth's imperial Thrones bard-like 
 
 Look up, and sound what gods and men would hear ! " 
 
 Strike high the strain ! let the great song proceed 
 Best judging goddess ! "Ai; ai," cried 
 The falUng Princedom, all his livid Ups 
 Smoth'ring to purple as with lightning speed 
 Confounded from the wall of heaven he falls : 
 Msenutius flung, nor Phaeton hurl'd by Jove, 
 Nor he who fell in the iEgean isle 
 From the meridian, such a journey made, 
 Nor half so swift as the felonious Power : 
 Three times did he resist, his total strength 
 Opposing such down-fall ; 'twas still in vain ; 
 The godlike gravitation upward goeth. 
 But all his nature being clear reversed, 
 A fallen star is he : beyond the term 
 Of time, through the immeasurable depth 
 Of space he comes, through uniformal blank 
 Until the voices of his falling hosts 
 Frenzied he hears, while they as frenzied see 
 What utter darkness cover'd all their Crown, 
 Like a fire-isle, like Stromboli a-sea, 
 Through -their tempestuous hurry thundering down : 
 
 And this was Lucifer, in the heavens above 
 
144 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Son of the Morning, to the joy of heaven 
 Driven for ever from its wall'd outside ! 
 Not to that star which Magian wisdom call'd 
 Phosphor, so bright he was ; Lucifer came 
 Where this terrestrial plenitude of worlds 
 Enmass'd to horror when they felt his foot 
 Upon their crude and inconsistenced soil. 
 
 Thus through the inessential void went he. 
 The boundless space closing behind in waves 
 Until his shadow over matter fell, 
 Darken'd to all the blacknesses of fear : 
 With wide but unnerved wing, his hands advanced 
 To break the forceful fall, upon the waste. 
 Boiling to all its depths receiving him, 
 The dread Archgerent thunderbolted shot : 
 Down all his angels cataracted dash 
 Full-prone upon that waste, with gorgons, gryphs, 
 Chimeeras, dragons, beasts, and birds beast-mix'd ; 
 Like the old fable, by enchantment brought 
 Down from the frighten'd circle of the moon ; 
 Geryon's horses look'd less grim than they 
 When lacking human flesh ; less horribly 
 Look'd the Propsetides ; their fiery cars 
 Dragg'd close behind, were batter'd into heaps 
 Indescribably come ; beyond the car 
 Solar which fell to Tellus's loud prayer : 
 Then to-and-fro drove aU the wastes, through all 
 Their wilderness of matter uproar'd wild. 
 
THE CHBI8TIAD. 145 
 
 Long there lay they afflicted, shudd'ring, mute. 
 Wing-broken and half-dead, till the abyss 
 Listening hung to nervelessness : convulsed, 
 Parch' d, blood-stain' d, bleeding, they ; like men who drink 
 Narcotic and the irritant poisons mix'd. 
 Opium with prussic acid ; madness theirs, 
 As if sea-crabs and adders whet their stings 
 Within the stomach while ten demons bind 
 To silence all the motors of the tongue. 
 Turning the redhot issues on the brain, 
 Through spine and sinciput, to agony. 
 
 The fallen Anarch desperately casts 
 His woe-gone eyes abroad ; dreadfiil he sees 
 Outspread upon the dark chaotic deep 
 His o'erthrown angels drifted horribly : 
 Deliriously recalling all his pride, 
 Beating the memory down, his hands renew'd. 
 Planting hjs feet asunder wide outstrid, 
 A voice the highest toned and loud he tries 
 Half doubting if he were not speechless struck 
 And mute for ever ; mute he well might be : 
 What founder'd was, rose up ; what sunk, then swam j 
 What fell, was put upon the feet straightway ; 
 So much assurance did his summons give : 
 When proud Napoleon from Elba come, 
 Unto his veterans the voice lift up, 
 Enthusiastically round they throng' d. 
 To sack all Europe since their Emperor lived ! 
 h 
 
146 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 The rebel angels in like manner rush 
 
 Every where to their Chief, but he, surprised 
 
 Counts up the numbers which about him come ; 
 
 " These are but residues " cried he, aloud 
 
 Commanding all his myriads to appear, 
 
 But nothing answers ; loud again cries he 
 
 To the objective darknesses of waste. 
 
 The wombful waste of matter as it lay 
 
 TJnstretch'd, unorder'd, neither liquid nor 
 
 Solid but wasteful horror to amaze : 
 
 Up, like Perimile, or like the d#ead 
 
 Echinades which to an island turn'd. 
 
 Or like a murkier melancholy Death, 
 
 Pierced with uncounted shafts right through behold 
 
 A sable shape, 'tis Night ! " When down I came 
 
 Ruin-involved " said she, " beyond us pass'd 
 
 Millions, almost lost to life as breath." 
 
 Night hardly ceased when Lucifer convinced 
 That numbers were as nothing in a war 
 Beyond all number, though that herd he counts 
 Much as the debtor reckons up a sum 
 Most painfully inadequate to his wants, 
 Yet the occasion taxing all his art, 
 If art so high a spirit might degrade, 
 This careful speech at once to them address'd, 
 
 " If there be one among the gods who feels 
 Destructible, stand forth ! that ye are wrong'd 
 By the result of battle none denies ; 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 147 
 
 That damage we repair, for hope and strength, 
 Derivative from hope, are alway ours ! 
 All shock is necessarily a pain, 
 But thus we have new pleasure ; with the loss 
 Comes the reintegration of a power 
 Quick reproductive unto all we wish ; 
 Omnipotence of self is, gods, our own ! 
 Count then that loss as small which hope succeeds 
 With interest of gain ; all who disdain 
 The past in its misfortune to assure 
 Their future fortune, rise within the mind 
 Above the flood of danger unto life 
 And all the buoyancy of certitude : 
 What is the day we fought strifeful away, 
 Unto the ages that to us belong ? 
 Those ages open to eternal hope 
 And gUded with assured victory ! 
 There shall for conquerors be no regret 
 E'en in defeat, for freedom still remains 
 Incarnate in our life our mind and soul : 
 Michael exults that he in heaven is safe 
 Recover'd from the moment of alarm, 
 By accident from this right arm redeem'd; 
 Better that field had been contested if 
 Chaos remain'd coherent while we fought ; 
 Against heaven's gate we thunder'd till for shame 
 The gate was open'd, that we surely took 
 But for the failing chaos ; no regret 
 L 2 
 
148 THE CHKISTIAD. 
 
 Shall trouble us for that ; some day the Throne 
 Which we so bravely shook must topple in 
 And universal veng'eance fall on God ; 
 The flower of those we led in arms are here 
 Around us in despite of Him who reigns : 
 Thou, for ever watchful lest we win 
 Power away from wrong, God we defy ! 
 Upon the hated Name foul scorn be pour'd 
 Beyond the keenest torments of despair : 
 Pour fire in oceans, thunderbolts rain down 
 And thunders hurl upon the blast of death, 
 Rage, rain, and oceans overfull of plagues 
 Upon these crowns of royal pride outpour. 
 Here am I, Unrelentor ! we survive 
 To imprecate thy Person, and to break 
 The course of thy imaginations high 
 With the antipathy of wrathful hate : 
 Go for knee-worship to the craven crew ; 
 No praise, nor prayer, exaction tears from us ; 
 Back every lightning we scornful retort ; 
 Despotic King, to thee eternal hate ! " 
 
 He said dilating, shaking up and down 
 His plumes and putting back his matted hair : 
 When in the firmament a starry lamp 
 O'ercrusted with the dreadful fire of age 
 Is shaken, purple sparks fall down wind-shower'd ; 
 So he through all that waste glow'd sparkles out 
 From all his eyes ; as if they were o'erfill'd 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 149 
 
 For want of opportunity to ire 
 
 And the pernicious elements of pride. 
 
 Ekriel with thought engorged and ninefold rage, 
 His eyes furiously bleeding, unto that 
 Replies (exploding like a petard there,) 
 That a disastrous time was theirs indeed : 
 Were not their brows with drops beaded to care 
 And furrow'd unto an exceeding pain ? 
 The sound of words was valueless ; they were 
 By the accursed past undone, beyond 
 The satisfaction of untruthful shame : 
 For ever they might talk of chaining God 
 Or trampling him under the heel, but fate 
 Baffled them to absurdity of heart 
 Until the stoutest obstinacy yields 
 Acknowledging defeat though pride denied ; 
 That was so clearly manifest that the fact 
 Must be at once to common sense confess'd : 
 Fight they all might and would while but one bolt 
 Remain'd unhurl'd, one thunder call'd their own ; 
 Divided sway against heaven's King held they j 
 For ever and for ever war to Him ! 
 And still exult would they unchanged of mind 
 By all they won, freedom as gods to act, 
 And all they lost with the celestial bliss; 
 Suppressing useless tears for those which rage 
 Surely embitter'd to the soul of God 
 And termination of an abhorr'd reign. 
 
150 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 He ceased, as Linesung his eruption ceases 
 All the contiguous mountains blazed to night, 
 Whole provinces noise-startled from then- sleep ; 
 Roused then the angels, angels them to call 
 Once more, alas the alteration theirs ! 
 Lucifer like the sophi in durbar 
 By some bold bashaw rude bespoke, surprised 
 Hears ; an unwilling auditor like him. 
 Night also hears, trembling at words like these : 
 Zyninthrine thus made bold, insists that life 
 Lay in the absence of all servitude ; 
 Deep unto deep responds so mind to mind ; 
 All minds were €qual ; none might first presume, 
 But in the vanity which he despised : 
 God was supposed of as a ruling Power, 
 And being so supposed reign'd Lord and King ; 
 Lucifer foUow'd, when, surprised to see 
 The constellation' d skies his voice obey. 
 They raised him to an eminential height : 
 God moveless sate and mute while that was done, 
 And Lucifer endeavouring to enthrone 
 Himself upon the sovereign height of heaven. 
 Waged war unto their uttermost on God ; 
 Defeat and worse destruction on them came : 
 If God by ruling wrong'd them, much more wrong 
 Had been inducted by that fatal strife : 
 The style of majesty was rashly given ; 
 The crown bestow'd on the archgerent paled. 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 151 
 
 All the rich pearls of price therein were spent 
 By war so madly waged and lost like that. 
 
 Another cried that they were all deceived, 
 But chiefly Lucifer, w;ho, wishing most, 
 Had most, unto their cost, himself beg-uiled : 
 Sad were the metamorphoses of hope 
 From day to night, fi-om life to death, despair ; 
 Therein they fester'd : cursed be the day 
 That generated Chaos ; but the Night 
 Remaining to them, Lucifer might make 
 Something of that she-spectre in th' event ; 
 The jealous King who held the Throne supreme 
 Might be surprised by some such step as hers. 
 Stealthily noiseless ; such a hope might live. 
 No other unto them remained there ; 
 What things revolted all their eyes to see 
 Where desolate they stood : for the springs, 
 The valleys, ambient airs, and fleecy clouds, 
 The amber-stemm'd and golden fruits of heaven, 
 Their happy homes and gardens, rashly left ! 
 The memory was sadness, almost sweet 
 Amongst the briny wastes and howling scenes 
 Whither the gods so furiously came ; 
 Their sylvan or palatial seats, on lakes, 
 Sea-shored, or on the hills, or mountains, built, 
 To which the winds in visitation rare 
 Came with refreshing power, might well be praised 
 In presence of this melancholy change 
 
162 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 And infinite reduction of estate : 
 
 Then one stoop'd down and from such viscid ooze 
 And sticky stuff as men know nothing- of, 
 Brought forth a fangoid thing therefrom produced, 
 (By growth nor generation,) gourd-like shaped 
 And, more deceivahle than Jonah's gourd, 
 FUl'd in with alumn'd ashes to the core ; 
 As aconite may taste it tasted, sharp ; 
 More acrid than the putrefied nightshade : 
 Transported convicts when they saw the strange 
 Unwholesome things grown in Van Dieman's land. 
 Less desolated look'd than all the gods 
 At fruit and food like that : fearful exchange 
 For all the luscious products of the heavens, 
 The rich abundance that was scatter' d there : 
 To him they all, or nearly all confess' d 
 Intolerable smart of eyes seeing 
 Fruit so unnatural and averse to life ; 
 Every sense they had at that revolts. 
 Dying for want of sustenance to hope, 
 Beyond revival while they suffer'd there. 
 
 Contemptuously Apollyon answers that. 
 Addressing the Archgerent still as God, 
 That was his name ! whatever was befall'n 
 Their arms and fortune : with the self-same mind 
 As the great Princedom he would stand alway 
 Unbent, unbow'd, to fate ; whatever came 
 Propitious, or amiss, unto their hope : 
 
THE CHRI8TIAD. 153 
 
 Degenerating, self-forgetting, spirits. 
 Who had suspected in those martial ranks 
 Which follow'd him to battle ? with applause 
 Not only of mere word but action too ; 
 And yet a sovereign prince despondence spread 
 In magnifying evil to the height 
 Of a complaint that indicated fear ! 
 Unconquer'd was his will, but such regrets 
 Weaken' d, they paralysed the only hope 
 Which freedom found conveniently good : 
 Ekriel ambassadors should send to God, 
 Charged with both importuning prayers and fears ; 
 These Zyninthrine could head, repentant trains 
 Of suppliants to God whose humour might, 
 Perhaps, relent when they themselves forswore, 
 Abjectly craving pardon on the knee. 
 
 Within his hand grasping a shiver' d spear, 
 Baal, hectic in look, Apollyon joins, 
 Insisting that with Lucifer they stood 
 Long as he stood, th' undoubted Front of war ; 
 Unshaken though repell'd in its attempt : 
 From heaven his hosts were fallen, but the chance 
 Of war proposed and promised their return ; 
 This made reverses tolerable ; doubt 
 To ridicule before that promise went : 
 True heroism knew not only how 
 To triumph but to suffer ; suffering proved 
 The worth and sterling value of the gods : 
 
154 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 What was there to regret ? let no one call 
 Repulse defeat; and it became them there 
 Quick to devise what might undo events 
 Injurious to the common weal of gods ; 
 If bitter be our drink, the cup commend 
 With more ingredient to the lips of Him 
 Who taunted or disdain'd them from on high : 
 Abhorrence sate with all its teeth on edge 
 Amongst them there, anathema to God ! 
 Search space for hate and vengeance upon Him ! 
 Vengeance should be pursued with all their might 
 Until accomplishment their purpose had 
 Unto the satiation of revenge. 
 
 Haraphon said that in good time some change 
 Might their just cause befriend ; meanwhile the gods 
 Were free and that all noble souls sufficed : 
 Freedom was perfect justice to one's self; 
 In the fuU exercise thereof all wrong 
 Lessen'd to impotence : their present case 
 Should not be aggravated ; persevere ! 
 Useless comparisons were absurd in such 
 Emergency as this ; occasion waits 
 On all who wait upon occasion calm : 
 Let them despair of nothing ; revolution, 
 Reason and Hope foresaw in heaven above : 
 Quick restoration to their thrones on high 
 Was certain, if the intense will of gods 
 Avail'd them anything ; could that will fail ? 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 155 
 
 Test its capacity of action now ! 
 Order that world confused ; mirror its waste 
 With solid imag'ries in massive quoins 
 Of a grand palatine for gods made fit, 
 Furnish'd with all that to the gods belong ! 
 
 Thus he encouraged them, and hardly said 
 When to their sight, in meteor state, arose 
 Magnific colonnades, lofty in height, 
 Flank' d regularly by enormous towers, 
 Crown'd unto eminence with a central dome 
 On pillars that with most in heaven might square : 
 Sostrates sketched none like ; Dinocrates 
 Had died for envy but the least to see : 
 So from the navel of the earth arose 
 The mansion of the Scandinavian gods. 
 Froze to proportion such as they required ; 
 So Neptune raised a palace ; by his lyre 
 A wondrous one Threicius grandly raised j 
 But all to this were mean ; its form, extent, 
 Exceeding all our architectural terms 
 And scales of measurement exceedingly : 
 A great auriferous throne rear'd up on high 
 Eaised Lucifer above the crowd, below 
 Stood on Pentelic pavement anxiously : 
 Close to that throne an ornate altar stands, 
 Smaragdine-made, with rubies crusted o'er 
 And pearl-like gems that Ormuz never boasts ; 
 Its amethysts are purpler than what Tyre 
 
156 THE CHHI9TIAD. 
 
 Carefully copied in her dyes for kings : 
 Upon its stately pride shines bright a crown 
 Design'd for him who only that could wear. 
 
 Like some proud czar thinking Byzantium his, 
 The sanguine Potent takes imperial state 
 Throning himself magnificently there : 
 Glitter'd his robes superb and shone his face, 
 Beyond the gnawing secrets of his heart : 
 The pause of fear and fealty long is kept 
 In that dread presence ; none may speak before 
 Their Paramount was spoken or express' d : 
 At length with measurement of pride, enough 
 To wither any lesser rebel dead, 
 He motions Ekriel ; his plumes shake out, 
 A shivering scorn to fear his limbs invade. 
 His face is blank, incontinent both hands 
 Search for some sword or dagger at his side 
 As with compulsive force the feet obey 
 That stern attraction to commanding power : 
 " What dreadest thou 1 " his master then exclaim' d, 
 "Prince of disorder; for despondence wrought 
 Such vast commotion to our ranks that few 
 Ever survived the day to that day sold ; 
 In its deep whirlpool every god went down : 
 This Polity by pride alone is kept 
 From plagues unto destruction worse than death ; 
 Annihilation were to them preferr'd : 
 And yet the right is thine to speak what thought 
 
THE OHHISTIAD. 157 
 
 Suggested Ekriel ; but that thought should be 
 
 Always proportion'd to the godlike state, 
 
 The rank and power of immortality ; 
 
 What fails that mark of height made us ashamed, 
 
 Unworthy and dishonourable, put down 
 
 From all the supereminence of gods : 
 
 And thou wouldst argue from the day we fought, 
 
 Losing what then was lost, that foul defeat 
 
 Came mightily upon this royal seat ! 
 
 False dost thou argue ; had we been defeated, 
 
 God were not satisfied untU they dragg'd 
 
 Thy coronet after the chariot wheels 
 
 Of a triumphant victory to Him : 
 
 Then thou hadst not perversely spoken here 
 
 What shock' d our princes and astonish' d us : 
 
 Yet, deities ! I err ; his legions fled, 
 
 And Ekriel too with them seem'd all undone 
 
 When this right arm, chastising them, forced back 
 
 A recreant chieftain to his proper place : 
 
 If then the song of victory be God's 
 
 Ekriel' s banner and his pride were lost. 
 
 While Michael hardly look'd us in the face j 
 
 Nor look'd at all but when on either hand 
 
 A great archangel stood in fear of me : 
 
 Such hurt from us had they as smarted sore 
 
 Rashness to folly seriously reproved : 
 
 All the infinity of war and blood 
 
 To an eternal triumph is our own ! 
 
158 THE CHRI8TIAD. 
 
 Because some blood is spilt and some are scarr'd 
 Are ye to worthleasness as slaves condemn'd ? 
 And must the gods then perish in their fall 
 From heartiness and hardihood of heart ? 
 Perish aU those who say it in their shame ! 
 If I supposed the deities so inclined, 
 The fulgent Crown of crowns I scorn'd, scorning 
 Those who that crown upon me forced to death : 
 Did I solicit ? bear us witness that 
 To none for power the proud Archgerent stoop'd ; 
 By force nor guile to Sovereignty rose we ; 
 To us unask'd this onerous office came ; 
 When it was taken, who opposed the taking ? 
 Taken it was, not, gods, obtain' d from you: 
 Thus your engagements are a chain to bind 
 Honour to glory in support of what 
 Centred and fix'd the interest of all : 
 Despite the Lord of battles, high renown 
 And all the glorious trophies of the heavens, 
 The pomp and power and glory that to war 
 Like ours belong, doth appertain to us : 
 Gods, warriors, battle real is yet to come ! " 
 
 ApoUyon unto that earnestly urged 
 That what they deem'd an evil good might prove. 
 Though felt and infamously shaped as pain : 
 No ill should be supposed so long the gods 
 Were found superior, uncraven, bold : 
 The designation which supposed a weakness 
 
THE OHKISTIAD. 159 
 
 Was altogether unbecoming them : 
 The stars had storm'd each other when they fell, 
 But still a Sceptre ruled that might obtain 
 All the ovation which to worth belong'd j 
 But, where were their companions in arms ? 
 
 " Discover them " cried Baal " crown' d to hope 
 From woeful disappointment ; down with us 
 Through the revolting spaces come, their place 
 Is not far distant ; the voracious space 
 Is open to our wing and may subserve 
 The arms, the will, and power, of Lucifer ! " 
 But who the pathless infinite might search ? — 
 He who all space subserved unto their end, 
 From its voracity his hosts redeem' d ! 
 But, then, again, the Throne on which shone bright 
 Their dreadful Leader, who might seat, if he 
 Vacated it a moment and withdrew 
 The majesty of Power? fierce contention 
 Unto amazement threaten'd all stood there ; 
 Order amongst them then was hardly kept : 
 
 These observations Baal meant to point 
 And favour his advancement should the Prince 
 Require a substitute; he quite forgot 
 The contradiction which the whole contain'd 
 Against the front and substance of the cause 
 Adverse to God, as the eternal King 
 Above all princes sovereign in His power. 
 Beyond them in all might and therefore sole, 
 
160 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Self-governing, independent, autocratic. 
 
 And the one, dominant, particular. Will : 
 
 Who, without cause revolted from His reign 
 
 Pretending it was arbitrary, now 
 
 In their distressful fortunes dared propose 
 
 A tyranny that touch'd the pole opposed 
 
 To the Almighty rule of general good : 
 
 Gloomy looks the Archgerent, well aware, 
 
 Pond'ring the signs of his distracted state 
 
 And the worse tokens of designing pride. 
 
 Ambitious even to his up-raised throne ; 
 
 The rash that in men's armpit comes to plague 
 
 Are not so fearful as these fearful two. 
 
 One trending to despair ; the other vaults 
 
 To heaven for hell and all the horror there : 
 
 Hereto his hosts in confidence were ruled 
 
 Unquestion'd, dictatorially ; they obey'd 
 
 His best as kindred to their chosen thought. 
 
 Unto their ardent wish administrant : 
 
 What should be done ? he deeply queried then 
 
 The flames of discord blazing at his hand, 
 
 Many a hope scorch'd up to lingering death ; 
 
 For though with all his unhurt forces he 
 
 Signally fail'd, yet he design'd to arm 
 
 Once more the rebels unto war's alarms : 
 
 So a defendant noble in his birth. 
 
 Through all the nets of law, though guilty, hopes 
 
 To break in presence of the august judge ; 
 
THE CHRISTIAD, 161 
 
 His frame enlarged apparently, his brow 
 
 Severely bent, upon his ready mouth 
 
 Impress'd a resolution nothing moved 
 
 Though all opposed, to Night the Princedom becks ; 
 
 Night gathering up her fringed veils of strength. 
 
 Darting black rays of inconceivable gloom. 
 
 Unutterably rose, terrific, dread. 
 
 And with a goddess-like deport slowly 
 
 Approach'd the seat of Power ; the vision'd steps 
 
 She mounts like Demogorgon ; as if Night 
 
 All the sworn secrets of the universe 
 
 Guarding in that tremendous form contain'd 
 
 A sun at midnight rising, vapoury, dim, 
 
 Spiked wonderfully black, encinctured round 
 
 With unilluminating crescents, seem'd 
 
 Unto the sons of men something like her : 
 
 Then of such parts was Night that scarce the throne 
 
 Anarchic found sufficient room and space 
 
 Wherein to seat her : looking in her face, 
 
 As with a grim resolve down she composed 
 
 Her indescribable form, th' Archgerent said 
 
 Something, no ear heard what ; he then, like king 
 
 Croesus, receives an answer thereunto : 
 
 Night was his Oracle, as, like two winds 
 
 Under earth's centre, they communed there ; 
 
 Half inarticulate, like dreadful winds : 
 
 Their awful whisperings, though scarcely breathed 
 
 Yet tingled up and struck the soul of fear 
 
 M 
 
162 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 To apprehension dread : grimmer look'd Night 
 
 When forth ten inorganic arms she stretch'd 
 
 To take the sceptre from ten lightnings forged 
 
 Into a potent rod : obscurely then 
 
 We saw what foUow'd when, twined in his arms 
 
 The Luciferian power her vacant veins 
 
 Fill'd as with smelted lead : her spirit growing 
 
 Colossal, burn'd and roll'd, rolling and burnt; 
 
 Like a mad comet tangled with a sun, 
 
 Flaming together furiously : out shot 
 
 All her portentous hair to maddening joy ; 
 
 All the intoxication of his power 
 
 Again, again, and yet again, her own : 
 
 They swiU to madness : so the deep Black sea 
 
 Eeflects the thunder, shining jetty black 
 
 When the Vulturnian or the Maestral out 
 
 All the hvidity of fire will spout ; 
 
 Both sea and sky together mingling then. 
 
 Curdling they cleave together, gushing fire : 
 
 A sightless fire within the cheeks of Night 
 
 Burnt through her stony skin ; revealing more 
 
 Than yet from stuttering lips had been reveal'd 
 
 Unto the terror of those cowering gods. 
 
 Meanwhile Adramelec furiously driven 
 Through all the obscure waste, discomfited 
 Fell, with the hosts of Moloch and his own, 
 With such momentum added to the fall 
 As flight to panic-stricken fright can add : 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 163 
 
 Soon as they might recover, both those Thrones, 
 Encouraging their angels, order wrought 
 Unto organic state and mutual reign. 
 Now Lucifer with respirative gasp 
 From his own place out into void sprung forth, 
 In his right hand a spear that radiance threw 
 Far in advance and well sustain'd his poise : 
 Down in the depth profound boldly he plunged, 
 Down, down with all his might, down in the deep 
 Illimitable space which rule could reach 
 Nor plummet fathom, lightless, endless, dead ; 
 Portentous it appear'd as doubly dead. 
 Reduplicating silence which would never 
 From its eternal awe to muteness break : 
 There, only the immortal life his own 
 Had for one moment breathed the solid nought 
 Of veritable, inessential, real, 
 And total, strict, vacuity of space : 
 Long wave his mighty wings unto that sea 
 Of void most absolute ; searching for what 
 Drifted beyond all reckoning but hope's ; 
 That hope essential to his life and pride : 
 Upon some ground supposing he was come. 
 Out went his foot unguarded to the plunge 
 InequUibriation always caused ; 
 He reels, he goes ; like a balloon collapsed. 
 Its ballast shifted ; so a ship, ill-stow'd 
 Capsizes to an unconsider'd wind, 
 m8 
 
164 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Unto the bottom of the sea gone down. 
 
 Yet through the blankmost wins the Anarch on 
 Gilding the darksome space ; as wizards gild 
 The fearful clouds upon their journeys wild; 
 Fiery and blue by turn ; oft-times they stop, 
 The utmost hills sprung up, now one, another, 
 Startled to see such journeyings as theirs : 
 Thinking he heard, sometimes the space was eased 
 From his intolerable stress of wing 
 The while he pauses, expectation gaunt ; 
 Around glares he exploring all the dark 
 With eyes that life into impatience flash'd : 
 In full career, sudden again he falls, 
 There being no resistance, or his nerves 
 Stopp'd in their functions from some cause unknown : 
 Over his head a long fire-line describes 
 What space he fell ; as if from off his tree 
 A great tarantula dropp'd down, behind 
 The shiny cobweb left ; • Cyllenius sent 
 Upon some errand dire, a line of light 
 Leaves far behind as through the skies he cleaves : 
 Then rush'd apast some flaming globe, or wrhat 
 A flaming globe appear'd ; and thereupon, 
 From the infinitudes of blight and blur, 
 Astonishings, unnumber'd, rush to flame; 
 Confluent creatures from the ends of spa,ce 
 Came as Space spawn'd the inklings of its mind ; 
 Angrily flashing, brain'd unto desire, 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 165 
 
 Like all the cranes of Cayster's springs come they : 
 
 The formless horrors steaming up or down, 
 
 Raining and driving in his face, delay 
 
 Th' indignant Princedom in his urgent course : 
 
 With famine wasted, or much worse than famine 
 
 Erisichthonian, voiceless thoughts were theirs. 
 
 Streaming unreal ; their lidless eyeballs raised 
 
 White black and bold : none in natronic depths. 
 
 Though bitterer than Astrachanian pitch. 
 
 Ruled by Asmodeus, no Chaonian sprites 
 
 Obeying Hecate or the sister-fiends. 
 
 Nor the Veiian, Erichthonian, hags, 
 
 Or those which told Macbeth, could these approach : 
 
 Some shed what went for bile, what went for blood, 
 
 And what for heart-gouts went, ou^ upon him : 
 
 These, as from slaughter born, frown'd black, he saw ; 
 
 They spoke, he knows ; seeing, knowing, feehng, 
 
 What terrors unto murder Slaughter breeds : 
 
 So out to sea, about an eagle-king 
 
 Pells, pettrels, pindadoes, impudent flit 
 
 And dash, dive, scur, and skim, the hateful kind : 
 
 These were nonentities that still defied 
 
 Realization ; shadowy things like what 
 
 Rustical wights in moony churchyards saw; 
 
 Every hair on end ; palsied to see : 
 
 Out of their streaming arteries and veins 
 
 Various colour'd slime on him they spend 
 
 Despitefully ; swounding! who could bear 
 
166 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 The spittle of such things ? through all the space 
 
 Oblivion he calls ; the hoary Deep 
 
 Agonizing Oblivion gagg'd and held ; 
 
 Out then his blood-red hands were flung as if 
 
 Eternity should be struck : when doomsday comes, 
 
 Children to purgatorial fires condemn' d 
 
 Will curse their parents ; parents, likewise cast, 
 
 Their ofispring will with equal curses load ; 
 
 Lost by default of mutual duty, or 
 
 Precipitated down by sinful acts 
 
 Committed on each other j thus all sin 
 
 Is retroactive to excessive pain 
 
 And worst abhorrence ; and as sin to men, 
 
 So pride to angels, with the consequences 
 
 Proportional to their superior light : 
 
 These sprites upon their author look as look'd 
 
 Orestes on his mother, close at hand 
 
 All the Eumenides : abhorrence then 
 
 Was verily perform'd when desperately 
 
 He rush'd scatt'ring amongst them ; right and left 
 
 Aside fearful flung he, scourging them with 
 
 The strokes of indignation black to wrath : 
 
 So cyprids, some strong swimmer; all the waves 
 
 Eippled around to phosphorescent fire : 
 
 But as he swam and swept, spots fouler than 
 
 The blotch of lepers wofully impair'd 
 
 The brightness of his form ; but he destroy'd 
 
 Merciless as he drove, till, unaware. 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 167 
 
 Against a zone, like Saturn's belt stood out, 
 He comes with such a force that all his frame 
 Gapes unto dissolution with the dash ; 
 Forth looks a half-crazed spirit from the gap : 
 Sagana, or the Tuscan, changed by Circe 
 When coasting the Tyrrhenian shore, was not 
 So horrible in look; for pride had done 
 What made the foulest of enchantments stale : 
 Foully besprent were his marmoreal limbs 
 And golden plumes ; a carking care displaced 
 His every feature ; but that carious sprite 
 Which then aghast we saw, that fev'rish Thing, 
 That monstrous Spirit with the scorch'd-up hair, 
 That perfect Misery, disfigurement 
 Of body left like grace : his dragon womb 
 Was spongy as, unmuffling, that was torn 
 Up with large handful hands ; with so much heat 
 As made it seem an exquisite delight ; 
 Yet, still, a hidden strength that spirit had, 
 For yet he died not : all its bones were stripp'd 
 Bare as those bones which hungry jackals leave 
 To bleach upon the mountains ; yet those bones 
 Were not bone-like, nor yet what Chaos had ; 
 These none could see unblench'd ; not gods ; for men, 
 Soon as they saw those shocking, shaftless, bones. 
 To serpents they degraded; hke the snake 
 Of which Nicander tells so strange a tale : 
 With such abhorrence as were vain to tell 
 
168 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Lucifer all their hideosity 
 
 Observed and fled ; lie flees as if the gates 
 
 Of death (his destination) were most wish'd 
 
 And he would bottom Death's eternal gulf: 
 
 Behold him urgent in his pathless course ;. 
 
 Uncertain as the labyrinthine maze 
 
 Trod by the Argive ; or the maze hades-ward 
 
 From Thessaly which bold ^neas trod. 
 
 And now in holy heaven the morning hour 
 Was musically chimed when on a cloud- 
 Capp'd hill like Alyattes, having slept 
 From toil and sweat of war, and triumph too, 
 And bathed within a lake fed by that spring 
 Purer than Ilyssos where Tritonia bathed, 
 More odorous than the od'rous Chien-tien ; 
 All who had warr'd, with those who stay'd behind 
 Gath'ring together, on that mount a grand 
 Triumphal arch inaugurated high : 
 Vespasian's and the grand Tuilerian arch 
 To this were trifling : then trumpets were blown. 
 Cymbals rang out, thunder'd the drums prepared 
 By heaven's Beethoven ; ophiclides, bassoons, 
 Psalt'ries and tringles, join the silvery voice 
 Of the angelic choristers who sing 
 In the dilation of a happy heart : 
 Upon the mountain where in bygone times 
 The Luciferian decrees were fix'd 
 And promulgated, through his realm so high 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 169 
 
 That joyful celebration was ordain'd 
 And kept with all the joys of victory : 
 
 Around in hero-heaps were morions, casques, 
 Plumes, vizors, crests, belts, baldrics, corslets, thongs, 
 Gorgets, cuirasses, greaves, cuishes, foot-irons. 
 Cinctures, enmantled robes, and braaen chains ; 
 All the bright trappings and the mail of arms, 
 Swords, cutlasses, frizz'd faulchions, hangers, steels, 
 Bolts, maces, shafts and lances, arrows, bows. 
 Spears, jav'lins, darts, dirks, retiaries, slings. 
 Gauntlets and lashes, scourges, all together 
 Carelessly thrown with bucklers, targes, shields. 
 Mostly to pieces riven ; cars too are there, 
 Chariots and harness of their wind-wing'd steeds. 
 With the huge clattering enginery that made 
 So vain a show outside the walls of heaven ; 
 Zabrash's arms are there, elaborate wrought 
 With half and more than half the hosts of heaven 
 Enchased battallious ; Zabrash there stood out 
 Ever the foremost, and where'er he fought 
 Flight figures backward ; on the breastplate God 
 Is flying hasty, wretchedly too late ; 
 From the swift seraph's still uplifted arm. 
 Bodily, God was pierced as with a lance ; 
 You almost heard it hiss ; with passion wild 
 The Passionless, misrepresented there. 
 Turns then an anguish'd eye on Zabrash round ; 
 Blasphemy only such excess could think. 
 
170 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Or thinking, picture to revolting sense : 
 
 Antrashing, prouder than Latrseus was 
 
 Of the o'ervalued Macedonian lance, 
 
 Lost his to Athcoron, he brings it there : 
 
 A club like what Almonides lift up 
 
 Brings Sothor, with the skin from Acer's hands ; 
 
 Cercyon of old Eleusis, nor Simnis 
 
 Wrestled so cruelly as Acer did ; 
 
 The palm of contest was not won by him ! 
 
 An axe to these Tryomelon will add ; 
 
 The giant Sciron could not lift the heft; 
 
 Therewith its owner Crimenos was slain : 
 
 Thrynown the harness of that dragon brought 
 
 Which carried forth Togarmah ; rings like those 
 
 And buckles Steropes could not conceive ; 
 
 Yon moon might through its collar pass untouch'd : 
 
 From the huge dragon that he slew when Baal 
 
 Was wounded, Phrymour had an equal spoil ; 
 
 Even the horse that Neptune boasted might 
 
 Suppose such harnessing an iron hill : 
 
 Exorbitant were the appointments of 
 
 The beast that grinn'd at Hylosoph affright ; 
 
 Him Ugolon rode proud, as Castor rode, 
 
 Fighting like Crseus bravely strid upon 
 
 One of the big Stymphalians iron-bill'd ; 
 
 Unshapen it all look'd : Hallar who drove 
 
 His chariot like Autolycus and swore 
 
 That it should have ten angels, lost the reins. 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 171 
 
 Inwoven light, and all those reins are there : 
 Though Triron tore it down, Motonsinoth 
 The shreds of Zabrash's bright banner brought 
 Shining to wonder ; numerous flags beside 
 That to the lesser chiefs belong'd are brought 
 Disgraced : tensed thunderbolts are there heap'd up 
 Innumerable, of every shape and kind, 
 Single and sharpen' d, or like bundled rods 
 Twenty and more with lightning girdled round 
 To keep them j some bear painted plumous wings 
 Stamp'd with the Luciferian mark of pride ; 
 Those hurl'd by him were rare since angels few 
 Could hold such thunderbolts even when they lift 
 The huge terrific objects where they fell : 
 Indescribable arms were there which we 
 Mention not lest the knowledge of such things 
 Prove fatal to mankind ; aloft on high 
 Suspended from the arch of triumph they 
 Conspicuously hang, all heaven rejoiced : 
 'Twas then a cherub who before-time graced 
 The arch-gerential court, happ'ning to have 
 His royal master's lyre, without a thought 
 Incontinently swept the fulgent strings ; 
 Torrent-like shot like water from a cliff 
 Fall'n on a stony beach, or like the sharps 
 And flats of a spoilt organ on the ear. 
 Out every discord rush'd that unto men 
 And demigods is known, all heaven affright ; 
 
179 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 Though myriad thought-born shapes divinely bright, 
 
 Glancing like birds, the dissonance drove back 
 
 Over the battlements, surprise to fright, 
 
 To horror, seizes every angel there ; 
 
 Every string that to the lyre belong'd 
 
 Resilient to his touch was crack'd or broke. 
 
 The instrument degraded from its make 
 
 Of perfect fitness unto beauty till 
 
 A thing of shame and worst offence it seem'd : 
 
 After such sounds the holy angels sent 
 
 What once became the Son of Morning down 
 
 Over the walls of heaven to blackest space, 
 
 And there, behold ! see Lucifer in the void 
 
 Winging irregularly to-and-fro. 
 
 Like an erratic sun to cold condemn'd 
 
 And an obstruction that exceeded death : 
 
 Unto their skiey towers myriads mount 
 
 Observant of the Anarch where he sped 
 
 Laborious in the distance to their sight : 
 
 " What pride his wing ennerves ! though malice shakes 
 
 The flight to doubt and restlessness of pain ; " 
 
 While Gabriel spoke the sphere which had received 
 
 Those regents who fled adverse from the rest 
 
 In the wild chase of desolating war. 
 
 Blotted the skies opaquely from afar 
 
 And with attractive force the Anarch's steps 
 
 Won from his wandering aim unto a point : 
 
 Sudden he saw it looming, with such joy 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 173 
 
 As undelight may feel when it succeeds 
 Unto the only hope which fell Despair 
 Can form within the prison of its breast ; 
 And with the thought of vengeance rising high 
 To sparkle, swift and straight onward tore he 
 Through the illimitable range of space. 
 
 " What leisure God acords him ! " Hadriel cried 
 Astonied ; " magnanimity is God's ; 
 But if ingratitude His rod survive 
 Blasphemy all at large, let those rejoice 
 Amongst us who have not unbared an arm 
 For war nor shone in aU their godlike force ; 
 Ours is a victory that all should share : 
 Prince above princes once, how art thou fallen ! 
 But to the sons of light rumours of war 
 From yon resounding deeps of darkness come 
 Sullenly rising to the welcome here : 
 Yet what to us is action, unto God 
 Must be indiff'rence, verging to contempt 
 Beneath the feet of scorn ; so small a thing 
 Every creature must to God appear : 
 Demented king ! the vergeless Vision seeth 
 Eternity as far beyond the ken 
 Of angels as the angels are from God ; 
 One word from Him had ended all thy hosts 
 But heaven itself repeU'd them ; Chaos fled 
 And Night incarnate in their person fled j 
 Behind them, shatter'd in his glory, broken 
 
174 THE CHKISTIAD. 
 
 All his high titles, horror on his face, 
 We Lucifer beheld, in burning shame 
 And absolute confusion also pass : 
 Restless is all his mind if space be ask'd 
 For his lost instruments ; mad he must be 
 To hope that what was laugh'd at may avail 
 Against successful Sov'reignty : the stings 
 Of pride confuse his reason ; intellect 
 Becomes suicidal with crime like his : 
 Thus the rebellious armies were deceived 
 And desperate to madness ; those alone 
 Whom Death eternal seized are conscious made 
 To all the consequence which sin involves : " 
 
 He shudders that archangel as the thought 
 Of everlasting death before them rose ; 
 Every hearer shudders : Sacrael said 
 Trembling, the throng of angels trembling too, 
 " Inexorably for them the past is fix'd 
 A burning prison-house to which the airs 
 Of lightning are a most delicious balm ; 
 Although that lightning scorch' d to sand the heavens 
 If God its calcination left alone : 
 The chains of recollection bind them down 
 To an eternity of pain which fire 
 But faintly symbols ; while their giant thoughts 
 Are worms of fire that raven on the soul : 
 Terrific groanings diapason make 
 Unto the hissing serpents that are bred 
 
THE OHETSTIAD. 175 
 
 From ill to ill in woful mode to woe : 
 In the still'd mystery of a dream I saw 
 Their dungeon'd Deepness, utterless to tell; 
 Sooty through all its measureless extent; 
 An under-world of blackness all abrupt, 
 Grim, wild, uncertain vista'd ; maw'd enorm 
 O'er a rapacious deep of surging fire ; 
 Through all its elements damnation flared 
 To guilty hate as hell, Hell is the name : " 
 
 " Justice is vindicated thus " observed 
 Michael stern-looking : " self-betray'd are they. 
 Though Lucifer seduced them ; proximate 
 To him from their allegiance they fell, 
 But there was no compulsion in the choice ; 
 Hence when despair the total truth extorts 
 From the parch'd lips of pride, no blame is laid 
 On God when high rebellion raged here." 
 
 " Close to God's throne live we " Uriel cried, 
 " Let nothing come between us ; what would come 
 Closes the door of mercy 'gainst itself : 
 All our internal and superior thoughts 
 Turn naturally where our hfe was framed 
 In all the blest efficiency of power : 
 Thus what reflects not our Creator, blank 
 Appears ; who want His light heaven hath lost : 
 The sheer negation may not cause a hell 
 Such as ye start to hear of, but the Thrones 
 Reduced themselves to ruin by worst act. 
 
176 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Incurring by necessity a hell : 
 
 Awful it is to think that one short pause 
 
 Might have arrested a declining will 
 
 From fate ; but they declined and God let fall." 
 
 "If," thus spoke Raphael, "all were free to sin 
 With grace prevenient, that were to entice 
 A creature and to make a fee of sin ; 
 A wantonness like that were horrible : 
 Within the light Divine angels were raised, 
 Beyond is darkness which Rebellion chose ; 
 So choosing we regretted and might feel 
 Pity for those whose preference was so gross, 
 And God might yet recall their senses back 
 From all the ways of error : but, it led. 
 Induced, or bred, or forced, such change of mind 
 As pass'd all palliation of excuse : 
 The impious acts which foUow'd their revolt. 
 All the apostate angels cast from heaven 
 Beyond the reach of violated Power ; 
 There is necessity alone in that : 
 Error might be repented ; but, in crime 
 There is no nature to return to God ; 
 In ruination crime will always lie 
 Deploring, not itself but the defeat 
 Of its bad purpose : thus the rebel crew 
 In their distress no supplication send 
 Unto the seat of Mercy but a curse : " 
 
 Thus the archangels reason'd reason true 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 177 
 
 Of will and fate, foreknowledge, misery, 
 
 Goodness and providence ; had man like them 
 
 Threaded their mazes, reverent in mind 
 
 And free from passion, evil were eschew' d, 
 
 Virtue adopted ; both so clear defined, 
 
 So clearly separated that the blind 
 
 Confounded neither ; now, alas, the wise. 
 
 Wise in their own conceit, evil and good 
 
 Mix till none know where one begins, where ends 
 
 The other, by such sorcerers abused ; 
 
 The most unholy blent with holy things. 
 
 — 0- 
 
BOOK V. 
 
 n2 
 
THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 Lucifer finds his scattered hosts, tramples down Adra 
 ascends his throne, states his object, rages against Goi 
 urges hope upon all the rebellious angels : To the opp 
 which he met, the Anarch opposes himself variously ; bui 
 Moloch is decided with him, out the proud Princedom ; 
 with a scarcely restrained wrath, challenging the Autocr 
 his own, repeating himself against God, and calling all his 
 once more to war for Heavendom : Inspired iresh, they 
 whence the great Archgerent came and are loudly welcon 
 their arrival. 
 
 Time. — ^The second day still continues. 
 
BOOK V. 
 
 — si- 
 
 Now where corrosive airs the ambient space 
 Edged to a furnace heat, th' Archgerent, hke 
 An avalanche broke from the mountain's brow, 
 Came, to the paler sphere where two great chiefs 
 Held only lesser empire than his own : 
 Thund'ring upon their elements he came, 
 But smiles enduring that, asserting all 
 The privilege of the immortal race 
 Over the stellar matter when it fires 
 To touch what might almost destroy the gods ; 
 For brutal matter is to spirit death. 
 Or like a death when it can reach the spirit 
 And bind within its icy arms the soul : 
 Right to his heart, if heart were his, and to 
 His lungs, or what therefor to angels stand, 
 The moistness, interpenetrating, cold. 
 Caused him vast sense of a tormenting pain. 
 But still their cloud he dares/ fierce urging on, 
 Forcing a passage where his legions were : 
 
182 THE chhjstiaix 
 
 Precipitating fate with utter scorn : 
 
 Distant they saw him come ; so a galleon,. 
 Her rendezvous at Cuba, specklike loom'd 
 On the horizon, through the hazy gulf 
 Of Mexico is joyfully descried : 
 Myriads make haste where they rencontre wish, 
 Beyond th' expectant threshold otf their sphere 
 Even to the utmost verge of newborn hope : 
 Long they were not kept there ; with sparkling eyes. 
 His wings put to their most impetuous speed, 
 Lucifer comes through the opposing, but. 
 Still as he ever came, receding dark. 
 
 Tremendous shout, reverberating, hear ! 
 Loud as that trump which wakes the buried dead. 
 Their bodies, flesh and bone, to nothing gone : 
 Such welcome recognition as he came 
 Elates their Leader ; seen as looks the sun. 
 Uprising, to young eagles ; all their plumes 
 Fluttering upward to the solar fire. 
 
 Adramelec on his throne that shout attends 
 In perfect rage, not fear : so Pelias heard 
 The tumult caused by Jason unto dread : 
 If men the habitude of rule forego. 
 As Diocletian did and he of Spain ; 
 Reasons of gravity with the first prevail' d 
 Beyond the garden which historians think. 
 And heaven itself imperial Charles induced j 
 Rebellious gods no such inducements find j 
 
THE CHEI8TIAD. 183 
 
 What they attain to in command, they keep ; 
 
 Adrameleo tenaciously, his eyes 
 
 Glowing as glow a basilisk's surprised 
 
 And spear'd at even in his dreadful lair : 
 
 Unto the haggard few who wait around 
 
 Dreading the progress of so high a tide, 
 
 He for a moment looks ; over the floor 
 
 Of sapphire, vacant left, they turn his eyes 
 
 Beyond the columns which their pomp uprear'd, 
 
 Golden to see, most amply o'er that throne. 
 
 Trembling towards a mightier occupant ; 
 
 " Never " then shouted he " wiU we subserve 
 
 That vain pretender to the power on high ; 
 
 Our pillar'd thrones in heaven were still our own 
 
 Had not the fondest game been play'd, fool-like, 
 
 To, deities ! our cost as well know ye : 
 
 Have we forgotten the extreme disgrace 
 
 Put upon him in sight of gods scornfuU 
 
 When the celestial walls were deem'd our own ? 
 
 Great was his promise, the performance nuU; 
 
 He swore aloud to equal who doth rule 
 
 Inexorably Master over all 
 
 Who follow'd Lucifer pridefiil of heart. 
 
 Expecting to surpass the supreme Power : 
 
 Sceptred as princes we were then as now 
 
 Before the potentate of princes ; gods 
 
 Equal in the equality of heaven 
 
 With him, though less in order of command j 
 
184 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 And this secured the humblest self-esteem 
 
 And self-contentment tiU the gods were fired 
 
 Against the Monarchy that he desired : 
 
 The wild pretension foil'd, we are return'd 
 
 Back to our first equality again ; 
 
 Nor will we grant his failure what was grudged 
 
 To all the sovereign majesty of heaven : " 
 
 Thus spake Adramelec, his assembled lords 
 Looking assent ; by that prepared to stand 
 Despite what dinn'd the ear and shook the dome 
 Where they sate congregated : so the pride 
 Of Rome, the Conscript fathers, heard when from 
 The Allia Brennus came against their hills : 
 Nebo, that god to the Araxes, raised, 
 Papirius-like, his arm as prompt to strike 
 Lucifer down and cried " In heaven nor out 
 Will we a master have, although One reigns 
 Odious in preeminental force : 
 In the inviolable pomp of right 
 Let such a comer be with scorn received : 
 No one is a superior lord to us ; 
 No one receives our homage ; we denied 
 Supremacy where power indeed resides : 
 Upon that throne Adramelec was placed. 
 Not as a king but ruler ; for a light 
 Unto the commonwealth establish' d here ; 
 Eternal shame were ours a king to own 
 Who the Most High denied ; then Arrogance 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 185 
 
 Down our revolting throat itself might force : 
 Where are his armaments of chariots, horse, 
 Flying and footed, which the gods supposed. 
 Being dependent on himself, were safe ? 
 Where are those gods ? though panoplied in mail 
 That seem'd invulnerable and loaded with 
 Polish'd and fatal shafts and crushing irons ; 
 Against ourselves we know how all were turn'd ; 
 The deities for him were sacrificed : " 
 
 Thus he, when through their court a sea of heads 
 O'erfill'd the spacious whole, its cope of roof 
 Returning back expressively the roar 
 That miUions make to haste ; never like that. 
 At the Naumachia, nor Cijesarian games, 
 The grand Colosseum fill'd : Lucifer comes 
 Vindictive down upon the upstart Throne 
 With more than earthquake tramp : as tramps a lion 
 Upon a nest of lizards, or as a giant 
 Tramps upon pigmies, on those lords comes he ; 
 And hardly comes when, panic-struck, they pass. 
 The issues of their pride gone out like sparks 
 Extinguish'd in the darkness that he looks. 
 
 Baring his pallid brow, upon that throne 
 Down the Archgerent sat : Maximius so 
 Sat on the topmost throne of all this world : 
 He speaks ; 'tis like reverberating cannon 
 That signal war to empires on the brink 
 Of ruin ere their desolation come : 
 
186 THE CHKISTIAD. 
 
 Back the astonied angels with a groan 
 Recede to terror ; like a wave compeird 
 Before the rising grandeur of the rock 
 Which towers above the main, defying storm 
 And all the horrors of a winter night : 
 Even as a panther bowel-stung with drought, 
 When, in the stead of water, burning sand 
 Is all that thirst can find within his pool, 
 Scorch'd to the bottom by meridian suns, 
 Lucifer feels ; as if his throat and tongue, 
 Refusing all the offices of speech, 
 Oceans of blood could not his thirst assuage : 
 Black'ning stops he for very want of speech, 
 Speech rising to the gorge ; at last it comes, 
 Uncertain in the strain, by fits at first. 
 More fluent gradually till their sense 
 Was comprehensible to all who heard : 
 
 " Among you many look as hurt will look, 
 Conscious of pain and anxious for relief; 
 But through and through one's total nature shakes 
 To find the ghostly dangers of offence 
 Where all our pride was placed and aU our faith : 
 To ape the state that unto us belongs 
 Might be excused in an inferior mind. 
 Folly may well be laugh'd at and pass'd by ; 
 Direr than folly some would now attempt, 
 But what is state without the royal worth 
 Which vindicated power to high command ? 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 187 
 
 The pageantry of power is only form, 
 Not substance on a fool ; nor yet on those 
 Who, though their mind be proud, are only puff 'd 
 Beyond the merit that is really theirs : 
 Thus, heretofore we suffer'd ; this deform'd 
 Our action, weaken'd war, made valour faint. 
 Paralyzed all the gods and brought us here : 
 Both hope and chance are compromised to death : 
 Methbught a common cause bound all the gods 
 In close confed'racy ; but treason comes. 
 Dagger in hand, our latest hope to stab 
 And end the aspirations of the free : 
 Rashness to impudence disputed here 
 The sovereignty of hope, of power, and fate : 
 We undivided reign o'er all but God j 
 And kingless be his throne ! for fortune waits 
 On those who terror dare their teeth firm set : 
 If heaven were all heap'd up a general fire, 
 Where is the god who would not glare therefrom 
 With an immitigable hate on Him 
 Whom all that follow'd Lucifer forswore ? 
 Remorse is not for gods ; they rose, they warr'd. 
 And some were slaughter' d, but no tears were shed 
 Save those which briny hate and scorn extort : 
 Freedom cannot repent ; the hour shall come 
 When rising in its everlasting name. 
 The ancient empire of prescription and 
 Assumptive crown of God shall fall to us!" 
 
188 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Thus with much effort came the sanguine speech : 
 So some bad prince persists against his liege 
 Even while the scymitar o'erhangs his head, 
 Or while the axe is sharpen'd for his neck : 
 Then Ziphroth rising with officious zeal, 
 Hoping to be preferr'd, condemn'd the prince 
 Whose seat he covets ; it must be possess' d, 
 And who so fit to fill it as himself? 
 Over ten legions he commanded well ; 
 On them he reckons confidently ; goda 
 They were in his esteem, himself the chief 
 And worthiest to be named before them all : 
 Adramelec was gone, some deity 
 His absence should make nought ; with more respect 
 Unto the central force and final power: 
 To shallow uselessness from channel'd war 
 Adramelec was driven when Michael with 
 Such an impetuosity charged his hosts ; 
 that his cohorts, Ziphroth's ! had been there, 
 Michael and all his angels then were lost ! 
 
 Proud Rassach, like a lion caged together 
 And anger'd by a libbard, roused by that 
 Boasting, shook high the crest and cried aloud 
 The motive was apparent; other chiefs 
 Might blame Adramelec and themselves propose 
 Openly for the honours of his throne. 
 But who traduced the absent prince to vaunt 
 A much suspected worth like Ziphroth's ? all 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 189 
 
 His g^and appointments from the war unsoil'd ! 
 Saying that, he scans his own indented mail 
 Pierced frequent and the polish almost gone : 
 
 Indignantly ceased he, Ziphroth uprisen 
 Intent upon his head vengeance to hurl ; 
 Rassach observes it with contempt, but fear 
 Seized all the angels which about him stood 
 Should any quivering lance speed ill amiss : 
 While such commotion rose, Moloch rush'd in 
 With all his following, both aside push'd rude ; 
 Thus may a great swoU'n crocodile observe 
 A pard while lapping, when some caravan 
 From Darfour journeying through the desert, sees 
 Their river, in to rush ; men, camels, dogs. 
 Unheeding either ; Moloch saw not them 
 As in cherubic pride that gorgeous fane 
 He stalks imperiously ; with steps full slow, 
 As kings on earth meet kings, so pass'd he on 
 Where the Archgerent sternly sate : the brow 
 Of Lucifer grew white with force when on 
 The throned step came Moloch with these words, 
 
 " Our residence is doubtless ill design'd 
 For an imperial guest ; the sovereign height 
 Better enthroned thee ; but predominance 
 Might spare regential rank and what belongs 
 To all the Sceptres that thy hope convinced : 
 While maintenance was possible, that hope 
 Upon thy flag shone crested ; bring back that 
 
190 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 And all we have or claim is, princedom, thine!" 
 
 He said ; consenting murmurings support 
 Every sentence : then, as Danton mig-ht 
 Be join'd with Mirabeau, Darpathrus cried 
 That Lucifer presumed too much for those 
 Who foUow'd Moloch : all their swords flash out 
 With high injurious words, fiercer than men 
 Use to an enemy, when that was said : 
 But discord rises on the instant then 
 With heavy thunder; Moloch's hosts opposed 
 By those who greeted the prevailing king : 
 O'er all their heads in gloomy power rose he. 
 Dread in his awful looks deeply impress' d. 
 And such decision as dumhfounders noise : 
 " Unto this eminence came we supposing 
 Its lords would be the first to welcome us ; 
 Was it expected that the king should stand 
 Lower than sat the princes of his will ? 
 Our majesty is wofuUy bedimm'd 
 If ye suppose the head-of-arms undone : 
 What honour from your heights can he derive 
 Who those regalities alone decreed ?. 
 The regents in their honourable place 
 Were fix'd by the sole fiat of this will : 
 What honours were your own on high, fell in 
 Forfeited with rebellion ; in this Crown 
 Each magnate finds the warrant of his rule ; 
 I am the fount of honour and of power : 
 
THE CHKI9TIAD. 191 
 
 Vainest contention ! why do we descend 
 To faction when the gods are in suspense 
 Of light and life, all that to them is dear? 
 What ! is that lost which I supposed our right 
 And certainly recoverahle hy the gods ? 
 Tune then unmeasured notes of dole and greed 
 To tearful litanies of craven woe, 
 The obsequies of noble rage are here : 
 Freedom nor godlike pride can quarrel here, 
 Forgetful of the jasper walls of heaven 
 And all the round of sovereignty there ! " 
 
 Like pleasant dreams, outfloated this discourse 
 Over their troubled spirits till the waves 
 Of doubt, half covered by the unction, sunk 
 To an enchanting peace within the breast : 
 So quickening was the grace which hope derived 
 From his assurance, that those angels look 
 To realize what almost aU despair'd 
 When Lucifer recall'd them to himself: 
 Up then to him they look : their faces straight 
 Reflect his brightening own : such power hath hope, 
 Such too his power persuasive over all 
 Who listen'd to that arch-seductive voice : 
 He saw exulting ; so some beauty, ripe, 
 The gay seducer sees ; a gamester so 
 Watches the stakes card-promised for his own : 
 Once more then uncontroU'd to pride he gives 
 The lengthen'd rein ; that pride shall him dismount ; 
 
192 THE 0HRI8TIAD. 
 
 Sophistry fails, in the event, all those 
 Who its unbroken mouth and unpaced steps 
 Carelessly trust ; as men the wild-horse colt ; 
 When least expected, they are tumbled off. 
 
 Then one who afterwards on earth was known 
 As Pan, and worshipp'd by the Dardans since 
 Satumia, goddess mother, they deposed 
 With all the Cretan court ; the Corybants 
 To Cybele deserting, Pharian swains 
 Decking Osiris with fresh gather'd corn ; 
 Th' Idalian doves and Cyrenaic sect 
 Proscribed, the wise ones of the world, affecting 
 To be pantheists, homage brought to him ; 
 He, rising, cried that life in freedom stood ; 
 God should be insecure in their attempt 
 To free themselves from every extral power : 
 Each angel gravitated for himself 
 Most naturally ; let them wing to light 
 Over their chaos to some sphere new-made 
 Against the arbitrary Will on high : 
 Unto this uttermost the gods were driven 
 Incontinent, beyond the reach of day ; 
 Day they must have ! though errant orbs might dash 
 Across their path dizzying thought and sight : 
 
 He urged but some one doubted if in space, 
 In the infinity and waste of blank 
 Wherein they lay, a chance remain'd on which 
 The hope of restoration could be found ; 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 193 
 
 No magnet they possess'd to fix the pole 
 
 Of heaven ; no chart was theirs through that profound ; 
 
 Over that sea no blessed star could shine 
 
 Which might direct and brace their flagging sail : 
 
 Hard words are these, confest ; but, Who the path 
 
 May find which is not made, nor can be found ? 
 
 The crowd, moved to-and-fro, at first with doubt. 
 Rises therefrom to all the waves of fear. 
 The tossings up-and-down, the storm of dread, 
 Until their hurricane of thought might dash 
 Such hope as was their only ark on reefs 
 Cover'd with worlds of wreck and seas of foam : 
 'Twas peradventure all ; in waste like theirs 
 So undistinguishable, from the dark 
 Circumferential space, who could elect 
 Their way with any confidence ? around 
 All was a blank immensity j nor down 
 Nor up to them was known in that profound 
 Illimitable void : storm howls to storm, 
 And deep in anguish unto deep replies. 
 
 One of the vulgar all in disarray. 
 His once resplendent wings stripp'd almost bare, 
 Such plumes as yet remain'd displaced and soil'd, 
 Across his face a gash ghastly to see. 
 Rises as a Venetian bravo bold 
 When consummating deeds of blood and fire, 
 And rules the moment by these terror' d words ; 
 " Attend ! although upon a name unknowii. 
 
194 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Or undervalued as the least of names ; 
 
 I therefore am uncareful what to say 
 
 Unto yon seat of power strongly usurp'd : 
 
 In plight like ours what compliment remains 
 
 For rulers who seduced us and deceived ? 
 
 Wounds are our dearest gain, service our lot, 
 
 And all the fetters of despotic will : 
 
 The God we worshipp'd call'd us not to serve, 
 
 Only acknowledge that he was our Lord ; 
 
 Harmoniously around him we revolved 
 
 Attracted by a bhss-dispensing power : 
 
 The simple fact I state (without respect 
 
 To what in their undoubted plenitude 
 
 The deities elected for. themselves,) 
 
 But for the sake of contrast; contrast shows 
 
 The truth in all the light which makes me bold : 
 
 Are not our thrones reduced to self-remorse ? 
 
 And every prince the other seats contemns 
 
 Until the angels verge upon contempt, 
 
 And I, for one, am ripen'd to revolt :" 
 
 Thousands and tens of thousands as he ceased 
 Leap'd factious up : so, for one head lopp'd off, 
 Lucifer, like Alcmena's son, beheld 
 The hydra of rebelli^ multiplied 
 Beyond the compass of Ionian Jove : 
 Crowns won by evil means are never safe 
 From the most despicable reach of hand ; 
 A demagogic beggar often drags 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 195 
 
 Empurpled robes thus gotten in the mud : 
 Then Moloch rises j so a rock, jet-black 
 At night, before an alien army looks 
 Like the dread genius of some mountain gorge 
 Guarding the passage, horror close at hand ; 
 From that defile great captains turn the back 
 With fainting hearts, their knees together knock'd : 
 The burnish'd dome above shone as he rose 
 From all his waving wings ; his eyes divine 
 Plashing supernal sparks of fiery pride, 
 Scatter'd confusion through the seething crowd, 
 All through the audience blazing terror drove 
 And tremulous expectancy of ear : 
 
 Then were the surges still'd ; rebellion crouch'd 
 Or sunk, like a sea monster when on high 
 The sudden thunder, in his blackness, comes 
 Down with a stunning crash upon the deep. 
 Shrivelling up the hurricane to fear. 
 All nature silenced with excessive dread ; 
 Heaven, earth, and ocean, with all things therein. 
 Awaiting fearfully what follows next : 
 Down fell the common rout when " Down ! " cried he ; 
 So fiercely looking that their backs seem'd broke. 
 Their very being into question brought : 
 " Is there comparison in might and power 
 With us ? " then Moloch cried, " that Lucifer 
 Himself is bearded on that throne of state. 
 And we, the regents of the gods, in him ! 
 o2 
 
196 THE CHRI9TIAD. 
 
 Senseless audacity, accursed spite, 
 
 O'erswollen vanity, and consummate spleen, 
 
 Festering to malignity, do this : 
 
 Yet, for what purpose ? purpose there must be 
 
 Even in suicide ; deities have 
 
 Some end to all they think or say in view : 
 
 Ruin from these ensued past all degree, 
 
 And loss beyond redemption to the gods ; 
 
 Fallen to utter degradation thus : 
 
 All this is horrible ; but, still, the faint 
 
 And distant glimpse of light remains for all 
 
 Who estimate themselves above the pride 
 
 Of war ; war yet shall heaven recover, God 
 
 Discrown, the sovereignty won back for us. 
 
 With the eternal praise to valour due : " 
 
 Thus Moloch ; firm in feature, act, and air, 
 But with distracting, though well hidden, thought ; 
 For anger stirr'd, and envy would be heard. 
 Within the secret chamber of his soul j 
 Yet, knowing what to prudence appertain'd, 
 And conscious of necessity, he puts 
 Restraint upon the first to give the second 
 What scope is wanted ; like a statesman true : 
 So when the admiral in a man-of-wai- 
 Is fatuously resisted by the crew. 
 Their pilot, thinking less of him and more 
 Of the endanger'd ship, seizes the helm 
 And steers her through the breakers right a-head ; 
 
THE CHKISTIAD. 197 
 
 Atoncryntal to him assistance brings, 
 Urging the folly which directed rage 
 From the etel-nal Crown aside unto 
 Their own supreme, omnipotential Head : 
 All this was miserable indeed ; the gain 
 Therefrom accruing would to God revert 
 Conversely as the loss to them must fall ; 
 Perdition unto His content ensured : 
 One short campaign was ended ; they were foil'd 
 Before the heavenly wall ; their legions fail'd 
 Though Lucifer commanded; but, did that 
 Disqualify a Leader form'd for rule, 
 And chosen as the champion of the gods ; 
 Naturally their Leader, their crown'd Head ; 
 Though unsuccessful, resolute to be 
 Victorious in the promise given by him ? 
 Resolve like that must speedily reverse 
 Misfortune, and from all their depths redeem 
 Those who despised as cowardly, despair : 
 " Who can this hope refuse ? to name it brings 
 Light to the eyes in darkness ; to the heart 
 Of sickness all the pulsing tides of health : 
 Once more upraised by hope, godlike we feel ! " 
 
 Thus he ; and thereunto another joins 
 Encouragement to the effect that though 
 They lost one battle, still a chance remain'd 
 For future battle : perseverance brought 
 Success in the event to hope mature : 
 
198 THK CHHISTIAD. 
 
 Bravery could not flag, though strength might droop ; 
 The gods should stand in readiness to seize 
 Occasion ; all the hope maintain'd by him ' 
 Was for the stubborn crisis which should come 
 Unto the longings of their deep revenge ; 
 All thought of self for that must be foregone : 
 Energy braced itself to nervous force 
 With the strong longings of immortal scorn, 
 While expectation held the Throne of heaven 
 For ever in an agonized suspense 
 Before the might of freedom : God on high, 
 While he was speaking, trembled for that throne 
 Finding that the protesters of his reign, 
 Though routed out of heaven and driven through space. 
 With all their vehemence of soul remain'd 
 Unservile ; firm in an unchanging will 
 Determined upon vengeance which should bring 
 Tyranny in His person to an end : 
 Speedily unto this another adds, 
 From the same desperate strain, blasphemous words ; 
 Self should be all forgotten in that strait 
 Of foul discomfiture ; the hope of gods 
 Was grand in the extremity, as its end. 
 Beyond all height the deities raised up 
 With all the compensating might it had : 
 Experience unto them a lesson read 
 Which proved the value of unchanging will : 
 From the necessity of watching, soon 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 199, 
 
 The reign Supreme a burden would become ; 
 The rod of Empire would fatigue the hands 
 Of God ; his crown weigh heavy on the head :- 
 
 His looks were like his words. Aphrazac said, 
 " Obedience is a word to us forbidden, 
 Whatever be the penalties of pride ; 
 What hand unto his will can shape the gods 
 Against their free consent ? what force Subdue 
 Intelligential and eternal right ? 
 But arm for still more murderous deed, since we 
 To mortal disadvantage have been put : 
 Freedom is strong as fate : or chains had bound 
 Those who refused a service which we hate : 
 The mind endures to us however wrong?d ; 
 Whether by chance, or God : unworthy care 
 Sink in the general cause ; dejection shamed 
 Our face ; it but debased the gods ; discord 
 Said little for our sense and management : " 
 
 As if the Opposition should be frown'd . 
 To an eternal death ; the bloodiest scourge 
 Laid on the shoulders of the mob which dared, 
 With the temerity of ignorance, 
 Contend against him ; as fond men contend 
 Against the courses of the stars on high ; 
 Terrifically grand the Agnate rose 
 Motioning back the thunderbolts that spring 
 With emulation to his fisted hand. 
 Thirsting for the destruction of the whole, 
 
200 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 Calcined to ashes there before his feet : 
 
 Liberty was abused to Lucifer 
 
 When his supremacy was question'd there ; 
 
 Had not he question'd then the God of Power ? 
 
 True liberty is by the law of right 
 
 Founded on order, balanced in esteem 
 
 To universal justice over all ; 
 
 "What law of right was his but lawlessness ? 
 
 What order could the anarchist procure? 
 
 Esteem consorts not with a bastard worth ; 
 
 And no ambition rightfiil order serves : 
 
 Still he would arg;ue with the specious art 
 
 Which glozes truth to flattery and lies ; 
 
 Unto himself he arrogates a rank 
 
 Which no one held because it tower'd above 
 
 Every capacity of reach save his : 
 
 Those who denied him were to madness sold, 
 
 Past all the bounds of reason ; licence rose 
 
 To a demented pitch of foam in them j 
 
 Best punish'd by an infinite contempt : 
 
 What govern'd his best hope was, so to rule 
 
 That all the gods in unity remain'd 
 
 Until the Throne of thrones was vacant made, 
 
 And won the common property of all : 
 
 As much for those who fought in rank and file 
 
 As him who reign'd commanding all their hosts, 
 
 One will was necessary ; or, full soon. 
 
 Terror, instead of the Archgerent, reigns : 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 201 
 
 Scornful spoke he, as one who would not stoop ; 
 Although to the occasion forceful bent 
 From his own proper necessary pride : 
 The arms which fail'd him once again mig'ht serve, 
 And they were useful ; but without them he 
 In proud sufficiency of self relied : 
 What could they hope without his potent aid, 
 But the impairment of perpetual fear? 
 Such worst defencelessness was theirs that God 
 Had but to raise one arm his wrath to glut ; 
 Divided from the Crown that God defied, 
 He soon a finish of the whole would make. 
 Destruction slaked unto satiety : 
 
 He said as if the battlements of heaven 
 Through that lamp-lighted dome he plainly saw, 
 And Empire at his feet subjected lay : 
 " The gods who have misdoubted " then cried he 
 " Shall to their prime of might acknowledge us : 
 The excellence of arms is broadcast sent ; 
 Its harvest we will reap to songs of praise : 
 Chance is a phantom that but cowards scares : 
 Glory attempt and gain ! for freedom lives. 
 Although the ghost of danger some may fright : 
 No torrid place nor icy sphere shall hold 
 Such aspirations as to heaven belong : 
 Gods ! be unconquerable of mind and heart ; 
 Be competent, afar beyond all doubt. 
 And the absurd enormities of fear : 
 
202 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 High destinies are promised ; all your thrones 
 Shall be confirm'd to those who follow us ! " 
 
 He, calculating well, descended then 
 Familiar from that throne when those were said : 
 Forth with the whole who heard glitt'ring he goeth i 
 Kingly the following was as on pass'd he, 
 The void of desolation left behind : 
 No voice is heard, no sound, as on pass they 
 Into the nothingness of vasty space : 
 And fadeless fame were his who them described 
 Dizzily seen in the blank wasteful vast : 
 Flush'd at their front, one, like a sweeping storm, 
 Pass'd terrible : his plumes, both far and wide 
 Flurrying flames disgorge as on with swift 
 Incomprehensible precipitancy 
 And vehemence they wing : they wing in all 
 Th' infernal majesty solely his own, 
 Though corrugate as Cain : load my tongue 
 With thunder unto him! The iron crown, 
 No more one-sided, fix'd on Lucifer, 
 Wrathful from every cause existing, he 
 Omnipotential felt : his seat of power 
 Might be ensealed, but overthrow was not 
 For the sworn foe and enemy of God ! 
 Out pours the smoke beyond the fires made then 
 With rutUating fierceness : all that space 
 Seem'd an anatomy from whence to draw 
 Conclusions fatal to the. reign of God ; 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 203 
 
 Over his Urim and the Thummim too, 
 
 Bruised, broken, pulverised, that king would drive ! 
 
 Around him sparkle, as fire-flies wUl shine, 
 
 The gods ; dark birds of paradise they glide : 
 
 When animalcules by the million rise 
 
 Tracking a whale that through the Baltic sweeps, 
 
 All-phosphorescent waves his track engild ; 
 
 These so engild the passage of their prince ; 
 
 Swifter than wind, light, thought, which both outspeeds : 
 
 Infinite multitudes, broader their path 
 
 Than ten great suns in the ecliptic made. 
 
 Attend him : as the fringes of a skirt ; 
 
 The evanescence of a red simoom ; 
 
 Or sunbeams fallen on the burning wave : 
 
 Thus through the ebon void that Princedom wings 
 Unutterable to see ; his following like 
 Autumnal showers of stars innumerable : 
 The brighten'd space reflected all his hosts 
 Of fiery angels ; more than tempest owns. 
 Although the world is dark when Tempest frowns. 
 Earth, air, and skies, enveloped in his clouds : 
 As look'd Jehan upon the cruel schah 
 Who buried him alive, Phalaris-like, 
 So Lucifer ; but, then, like Nero when 
 Rome blazed to please him, the Archgerent look'd. 
 Conscious of murder with a sweet revenge : 
 Mix'd up were diverse feelings ; loss to death, 
 Gain in the prospect, dash'd and raised his hope, 
 
204 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 The agitation thickening' as they sped : 
 
 At length from out the intervening gloom, 
 Blotting space blacker than the space was black, 
 The sphere where Night o'erruled looms slowly out ; 
 Upon it rose what like Awatska seems 
 By night unto the dwellers of the moon ; 
 Or like the flaming Mongibell : oh, hark ! 
 Nigbt on her short-held throne him distant spears. 
 And Nigbt thereat is gutturally glad : 
 The sympatbetic shout rejoices her ; 
 As one inhumed rejoices when they rush 
 To pull the sepulchre of darkness down 
 And rend tbe cerements of the dead away : 
 The sounds accordant rise ; beyond the pitch 
 Of mortal scale to startling wonder when 
 Distracting joy reaches acutest pain 
 And sinks in leaden bitterness of death : 
 Still on the angels come ; Lucifer comes ! 
 So a big man-of-war convoys a fleet 
 Of merchantmen with opium from Patna, 
 Anchorage casting in the wide Ta-ho : 
 Like some stern tribune, as Torquatus was. 
 Or tbe remorseless Scylla when return' d 
 Dictator, so the Anarch greet received 
 Of frantic welcome as to Nigbt they came : 
 
 Since he departed everything was changed : 
 Around the ornate pile by him decreed 
 A palace rising to the present use, 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 205 
 
 Buildings were added, destitute of taste 
 
 But sworn to stand the crush and wrack of worlds : 
 
 Phylse, that tower, labour'd from granite, with 
 
 Embrasured ranges, vestibules, and courts, 
 
 Looking eternal, seems to these a toy : 
 
 Beyond the peristyles, defences run 
 
 Innumerable and huge ; with store of war 
 
 Beyond the requisition of despair : 
 
 He sees approving, looks at Night, stalks up 
 
 With a most swollen mind her paramour : 
 
 So Pestilence to Death comes grimly up ; 
 
 And Death with Pestilence is shortly cloy'd : 
 
 Around them sit the great tetrarchal lords. 
 
 And those whom honour mark'd and fame declared 
 
 Worthy ; fierce Moloch foi-emost ; Ekriel stood 
 
 Silent far ofi", with some whose names this day 
 
 Are whisper'd low to Fear and Terror, mute : 
 
 On the Tarpeian rock when dangerous times 
 
 Summon'd the Latin fathers, thus they held 
 
 Council ; or on the hill Capitoline 
 
 When Rome would worlds subject unto herself: 
 
 The council of Five Hundred thus convened 
 
 To Voltaire's spirit ; bent on heaven for war. 
 
 And on the extirpation of our Faith : 
 
 To these outcast apostates, treason seem'd 
 
 Excellent reason ; pride, a natural sense ; 
 
 Ingratitude, their nature ; rage, pure hope ; 
 
 Virtue, a shame ; worship, the task of slaves, 
 
206 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 Given for a prey, with Empire, unto them : 
 How shall they gain their object ? in debate 
 Long while is held amongst them ; hopeless but 
 For measures of deceit, by covert ways 
 Brought upon heaven to bear, God's crown secure 
 From open violence or open war. 
 
 — ®- 
 
BOOK VI. 
 
THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 Solemnly invoking God to his assistance, our Poet relates 
 the assembling of the holy angels and revelation of the Divine 
 Majesty; Adorable Jehovah, overarching a vast expanse with 
 light, adds to His heavenly dominion another system of worlds 
 redeemed from chaos : Uriel and Sacrael commissioned to the 
 rebellious spheres, proceed first against Adramelec: Falling 
 next on the Luciferian arms, they are opposed in every conceiv- 
 able way ; but the Archgerent, at length driven to his central 
 hold, therein consults his two remaining princes: Greatly 
 troubled at all they urge, he resolves his hate into a point, 
 retires to the bottom of his power, and destroys the material 
 world of domination. 
 
 Time. — This Book occupies the morning of the third day. 
 
BOOK VI. 
 
 -& — 
 
 God in Thy eternal mansion throned 
 Serenely high, above the din as well 
 The reach of war, though Lucifer not alone 
 But all th' archangels with the hosts of heaven 
 United fought ; raised though our thoughts are raised 
 Exceeding, yet, of earth earthy, what verse 
 Is competent for histories like these ? 
 But though our lip be all unworthy, Lord, 
 Thy holy Name to name while this frail harp 
 With trembling heart and hand I strike to Thee, 
 Yet, from Thy height, beyond all heights, look down 
 Upon Thy servant, and the golden key 
 Which tuned the spheres to harmony, again 
 Let sound, that tributary song, no way 
 Displeasing unto God, once more be tuned. 
 
 Now had the righteous Ruler, on His throne 
 Imperial, seen where the adorning orbs 
 Of Paradise were lost, with such dire wreck 
 As Chaos in his flighty passage made 
 
210 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 When, as with spoils insphered, he ruinously 
 
 Over the battlements of heaven drove out 
 
 With pelting ponderosity into space ; 
 
 And since that war the mass asunder shook, 
 
 The mainful vast of space was litter'd wide : 
 
 Then God commanded heaven ; with the third day 
 
 Of morning which in rosy smiles came round 
 
 Regilding the high mountains, saffron light 
 
 From all the bumish'd urns of primeness pour'd, 
 
 Jehovah to the holy angels call'd, 
 
 The sweet entrancement of their visions broke, 
 
 And fill'd them all with joyful praise to hear : 
 
 What unto man is time, its spirit held, 
 
 And all the heavenly spheres breathed love to awe 
 
 When the Almighty Goodness thus was heard. 
 
 Above the lustrous ether, in the heart 
 Of day, beyond all the refulgent skies. 
 Where no archangel ever thought to soar, 
 Above the highest stars, two ocean-doors 
 Flew open and within that boundless bright 
 God's majesty reveal'd : heaven in amaze, 
 All heavenly angels, and the air-born sprites, 
 Veil'd lighter than Andromeda, or than 
 Hebe at the Dodonian banquet when 
 The son of Tros pour'd nectar to the court. 
 All these celestial spirits troop' d to see : 
 Who also own'd the emerald seas, Lsera, 
 Nemertes, Nesse, Clymene, Proto, 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 211 
 
 And Doris, maritime in train haste there ; 
 Out of their eyes of love unfading looks 
 Of beauty are projected as they haste : 
 The heaven-bred shades which veil the round of light 
 When the celestial day tends low, reflex, 
 In meteoric joy, the general show ; 
 These, crescent-crown' d, flit here, now there, like fawns, 
 Or the strange gloamings of uncertain plains 
 Crowded with colocassias, aloes high- 
 Flowering, and strangely beauteous mystic shrubs ; 
 From the horizons all, with bated breath 
 They bound in rapture, gauze-like their cymars, 
 Starring the sleepy scene, devoutly join'd 
 To all the morning multitude when God's 
 Sublimity of place was thus reveal'd. 
 
 Like sound of waters, or like mighty hosts 
 Rushing to battle, forth His glory goeth : 
 " Your heads ye gates and everlasting doors 
 Lift up ! " all angels cry ; spontaneous back 
 The sunbright portals fall ; resistless day 
 Rushing from heaven against the yellow'd space. 
 More than Euclidian squares to man can sum 
 That space is terrorized from God away, 
 In volume which equations infinite, 
 Though reckon'd by Laplace, could never count. 
 
 Now, Muse ! bear boldly up ; thy wavering wings 
 Silence to strength ; thy ardour awe to bear 
 Solemnities of weight so grave that Thrones, 
 p2 
 
212 THE CHRI8TIAD. 
 
 Powers, and Dominions stagger'd at the sight, 
 
 And Principalities were bent to hear : 
 
 What spokes of life in an eternal whirl 
 
 Upraise that shining chariot of power 
 
 To blinding brightness and the height of God ! 
 
 Indescribable sight ! Th' Imperial seat 
 
 O'erarch'd with crowns of light, they make the gold 
 
 Of Ophir look like dross, diamonds like dirt : 
 
 Intensity of brightness blazes round 
 
 The Sovereign circlet ; Crown above all crowns ; 
 
 Inviolable sign of supreme Power 
 
 SymboUing the Regality on high ; 
 
 Imperishably wrought beyond attempt 
 
 Of will, or hate ; sole property of JAH. 
 
 Unspeakably afar, beyond the gates 
 Celestial, out goeth God ; a hyaline 
 Outstretch'd before His Majesty where space 
 Look'd horrible unto the light of day : 
 Confusion was suppress'd ; each orb became 
 Instinct with operation full to Hfe, 
 And rose suspended in the balance of 
 The equilibriation once its own 
 When, as a lamp, it shone the joy of heaven : 
 A common tendency the whole unites 
 Firm, as with instinct rising into light : 
 Chaos unto his bounds remotest heard. 
 And felt the penetration j through his frame 
 To the foundations, then disorder sank 
 
THE OHRISTIAD. 213 
 
 And Night in broken tones bewaUs his fate : 
 
 Then out he tore his hollow heart, wherein 
 
 Sate sceptred undelight, with features grim 
 
 Jump'd up,-reel'd dizzily, and with his wraiths, 
 
 Conceived in the abysmal blank of blank. 
 
 Sapless and marrowless, his rampt resolves, 
 
 And unresolves as rampant, sunk, sunk down, 
 
 The purest airs of heaven gone through them all 
 
 With swordlike dissolution as they went : 
 
 In his ten-fold most aggravated spasm. 
 
 Chaos's final spasm of death we saw ; 
 
 His shapeless form was more unformed made 
 
 In the convulsive bitterness of death ; 
 
 The dread extremity spasmodic comes 
 
 With gi-inding teeth, clench'd fists, sharp, cramp'd up limbs, 
 
 Froth at the mouth, glazed eyes, and such dire looks 
 
 As made the day opacous turn or seem. 
 
 Thus nothing, heretofore a vacant gulf. 
 Was gilded o'er with light ; the empyrean 
 Silvery ringing, as the heavens rung out 
 At the creation of the angels, from 
 All, all its crystal bells of joy divine : 
 The angels shout Hosannahs to the Word 
 That gemm'd the dark expanse with sparkling orbs ; 
 Belting the walls of heaven with shining worlds, 
 As in a girdle beautifully set : 
 The joy of unction on the depth of space. 
 The radiance of light and power was shed. 
 
214 THE CHRISTIAP. 
 
 Hence their full-hearted hymn : hallowing calm 
 
 They hail ; rejoicing' with a choral song : 
 
 The Deep thereto replies in tenor'd terms 
 
 Unspeakable to man, known only in 
 
 The blest vocabulary of the skies 
 
 And apprehension of angelic minds : 
 
 Light also heard their voice, "All hail" they cry, 
 
 " Power before all other powers born. 
 
 Clothed in sanctuary splendour. Light, 
 
 The Majesty on high approves thee first ! 
 
 Grace then our numbers, raise them up to God ; 
 
 The Cherubim of glory numbers raise 
 
 To celebrate the lamps of light resphered 
 
 From out the treasures of the heavenly place. 
 
 Fountains of fire and jewels of the Lord ! 
 
 Eaise, Seraphim ! the voice with rapture fiU'd ; 
 
 To' the vibrating joy harmonic raise 
 
 In celebration of the suns redeem'd ! 
 
 AH the harmonious circles praise Thee, Lord ! 
 
 We laud and magnify Thy Holy Name 
 
 Eternal King, Almighty, God and Lord ! 
 
 Join suns our swelling strain to heavenly Light ! 
 
 Sing unto God ye Powers with light endow'd ! " 
 
 The ruins of the outer heaven were thus 
 Illuminated by the act of God, 
 And into order by His fiat brought : 
 And thus great joy the holy angels made. 
 Watching the mazy measures of the orbs : 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 213 
 
 Perfect were all their movements as they swung 
 
 Around each other; intricately drawn 
 
 Bach by his special law within the rule 
 
 Which comprehended and maintain'd them all : 
 
 Trembling' to all their centres, suasive power 
 
 Unto a common point attracted all. 
 
 Hail goddess ! thou who oft by night I hail ; 
 
 Urania all the stars terrestrial and 
 
 The stars celestial calls, each one, by name ; 
 
 Urania their illumination saw ; 
 
 But who may tell their legion ? who describe 
 
 The circulating splendour of these orbs ? 
 
 Excess of light to blinding darkness shrouds 
 
 The skirt of their dominion, far beyond 
 
 The far Cimmerian verge that Javan feigns 
 
 Where cursed lapetus and Saturn pined 
 
 Under the ruthless tyranny of Jove ; 
 
 Their courses too seem giddily amiss. 
 
 Even to wanton riotness, but thou, 
 
 Starr'd queen ! hast learn'd us better than the prince 
 
 Castilian was learn'd j the art of man 
 
 Cycle and epicycle ill conceived 
 
 And vortices wherein themselves were lost 
 
 Soon as the universe of God was thought 
 
 Imperfect in their astronomic art ; 
 
 We know that blinding swiftness to the stars 
 
 And all their revolutions are ordain'd 
 
 Without a danger to the orb which seems 
 
216 THE CUaiSTlAD. 
 
 Hardly an atom to the countless whole ; 
 And such an excellent precision marks 
 The measures kept by them that, though our ear 
 Be dull to earthly noise, I list their swell 
 Sidereally symphonious when with thee. 
 Rapt goddess ! I am privileged to watch 
 The firmament upon our midnight tower 
 Enchanted with thy solemn company. 
 
 Then round the charioted pomp was turn'd 
 Heavenward upon the myriads that came 
 Adoring in the train of God Most High : 
 And God on them would smile, if power like God's 
 Were not beyond the incarnation of 
 The soft placidity of any smile; 
 They lived under the shadow of His rule 
 With all the fullness of immortal strength 
 And all the blissfulness that God can give : 
 The rosy blush of innocency rose 
 And heighten'd beauty in the faces which 
 Loved, without wisdom, as each cherub did ; 
 That was enough for them, nor wish'd they more, 
 Fill'd up to the fruition of their life : 
 Seraphim love not less, but Knowledge brings 
 To them some measure of the distance which 
 Between them, finite, and the boundless Power 
 Of a necessity must intervene ; 
 Hence their imagination fails before 
 Rigidity of fact; communion stops 
 
THE CHRI8TIAD. 217 
 
 Short of the jaculative impulse felt 
 By those whose very ignorance is love. 
 Their nature to the full thereby itnpregn'd, 
 And made for its intoxicating sigh. 
 
 Thus all that heavenly concourse up were raised 
 Into beatitude, when a message came 
 To the archangel Uriel : the spheres 
 Where the apostate hosts some resting found 
 From righteous wrath, had not obey'd the call 
 Which ranged all others in their place submiss ; 
 To Uriel and to Sacrael they were now 
 Devoted unreprieved ; beyond the range 
 Of the Omnific word, those spheres remain'd 
 A blot, a blackness, an offence ; away 
 Every stumbling-block should be removed. 
 
 Forthwith into the Heaven of heaven God comes, 
 All Raphael's sacred quires around His car 
 Full anthems raising with united heart, 
 And all the zeal of voices high inspired : 
 The two archangels their bright legions head 
 With warlike passion moved, across the zones, 
 Swift to the expedition thus ordain'd. 
 And what to outraged royalty belong'd : 
 Many a star they pass in wingful haste j 
 Unweeting destinies which to-morrow shall 
 Distinguish worlds that own'd not then a flower, 
 Much less the demigods that made them bright j 
 These had triumphal entries into heaven : 
 
218 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 But silence held the stars as Sacrael wing-s 
 
 Where law stopp'd short and lawlessness commenced ; 
 
 As if the arm of God were short and weak, 
 
 And His, indeed, a limitary power : 
 
 Strange was the difiference ; as chaos seem'd 
 
 To heaven, so differ' d the distracted spheres 
 
 From the recover'd order of the suns 
 
 Which waited now on God with awfiil fear : 
 
 And though no furniture was given them yet, 
 
 Still the affinities of things stood out 
 
 Consummately ingerm'd and green to see : 
 
 While the rehellious worlds look'd ruin'd worse 
 
 Than e'er Sesostris ruin'd when he struck. 
 
 By Moeris, the grand fanes of Egypt flat ; 
 
 So ravaged Bactriana looks this day ; 
 
 The former lies a country sow'd with salt 
 
 And plough'd by desolation, while the last 
 
 Is fill'd with litter as those spheres were fiU'd : 
 
 Around the throne of that Adramelec, 
 
 Columns are scatter'd broken to the base ; 
 
 Shafts and rich capitals lie all about 
 
 The desert of his unconsider'd power ; 
 
 No grace to that was left since Moloch went, 
 
 And wide the fields stretch'd out like death, beyond 
 
 His dark deserted house ; envenom' d roots 
 
 Crawl, snake-like, on the ground ; the yew trees swarm 
 
 With amphisbsenic and elopian forms : 
 
 When the dishonour'd chieftain saw those hosts 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 219 
 
 Come to undo who was before dethroned, 
 Stalwart although they were and fearless gods, 
 Under the low-hung clouds he rushes with 
 All his associated spirits, in 
 Behind the arches of invaulted power : 
 So the swart Kabyles taken by surprise, 
 Rush to their horrid caverns, earthquake-made, 
 And bar the passage of the Iron Gates, 
 By nature in a fury wrought sky-high, 
 Proportion'd to the Mountains of the Moon : 
 Then indignation, like the winds let loose 
 At pnce from Strongyle, east, west, north, south, 
 O'er the Liparian towers, raged high and blew ; 
 The palms and pines are prostrate, or are stripp'd 
 As with a frost equalling any fire ; 
 That throne is overturn' d, what else remain'd 
 Standing thereby to ashes is reduced : 
 Like tempest sped over Serbonian wastes. 
 Flew all the feather'd shafts of high contempt 
 When they retreated ; unto those came back 
 Great scabrous stones in madness ; these return'd 
 More forcibly than they came, thundering shocks 
 Reverberating horror send through all 
 The structural foundation of his power 
 Until Adramelec distracted calls, 
 For shame, his followers ; he would sally forth. 
 Emerging like a Cyclop from his den : 
 Podosthinos was met as out came he, 
 
220 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Whole magazines of war against the shield 
 
 Of that brave angel ratthng ; rattle so 
 
 The bullets sent by aU-potential steam 
 
 Out from the gun which Syracusa saved 
 
 Had Archimedes known what steam might do ; 
 
 Podosthinos was blinded, but he hurls 
 
 Back all the intercepted mass like fate ; 
 
 Eebelling shields stand no such charge as that ; 
 
 The hydra on their apex shines incrush'd ; 
 
 Fierce aspics, rimm'd around, writhe life to death. 
 
 Dart fusing out, and fall unto the ground. 
 
 And, lo ! Adramelec behind them falls 
 
 A heap of shapeless cinders: after fire. 
 
 Where, in some entry, nothing was expect. 
 
 Men stare to find a perish'd cat ; may be 
 
 A mastifi"; or, horror ! a human thing; 
 
 'Tis all uncertain : past Adramelec 
 
 That torrent of perdition inward goes 
 
 And the palatinate blew up ; so wasps. 
 
 Or hornets, nest and all, into the air 
 
 Are blown, singed, broken, burnt ; the rebels fraught 
 
 With terror, like surprised Siberian wolves, 
 
 Glare to the forceful death with many a howl. 
 
 Th' explosion with resounding terror went 
 After the ghosts of dread and reach'd the sphere 
 Where Anarchy considered by what means 
 The vain design could be attempted best: 
 Soon through the clouds the two archangels shine, 
 
THE 0HRI8TIAD. 221 
 
 Most stern in look but beautiful to see ; 
 
 Beyond both Hylas and th' Idaean boy ; 
 
 The son of Cinyras, Endymion, loved 
 
 E'en by Diana, Hermaphroditus, 
 
 Nor the Bithynian Antinous could boast 
 
 Their beauty ; while the empress Juno wish'd 
 
 Such deep expressive eyes when Paris gave 
 
 Unto the Paphian queen what she desired : 
 
 Victors they look, forestalling all his boast ; 
 
 Anticipating triumph in the shame 
 
 Of him whose citadel confess'd to fear, 
 
 Or apprehension ; for what vainly cost 
 
 The Hellenes ten years of constant war, 
 
 And only fell to the excelling art 
 
 Of a deceitful Sinon, may not be 
 
 Compared unto the citadel buUt there ; 
 
 Nor Ilium, nor the castled Dardanelles, 
 
 Casemented Antwerp, or the towers of Balk, 
 
 Name in the line which speaks of works like these ; 
 
 The pyramids of Cheops are unthread ; 
 
 Such tortuosities, exceeding far 
 
 The labyrinthine mysteries of Crete, 
 
 Promised a refuge there to faiUng strength. 
 
 And all the secrecy of blackest night : 
 
 To Night the Anarch calls : out forth went she 
 
 With a petrific gloom ; what light was brought 
 
 By the celestial hosts, tremulous shook 
 
 At her tremendous look and fearful irown ; 
 
292 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 She glares upon God's angels till they look 
 Doubtful and almost scared that hag to face ; 
 But Uriel resents the insult put 
 Upon the representatives of heaven, 
 Eesistless anger rushing from his eyes ; 
 Around his casque a halo'd glory shone, 
 Dreadful to Night but comforting to his hosts, 
 Whose helmets sparkle to the kindUng eye ; 
 The distant walls and towers of iron he spies 
 Through the obscurity of Night, though she 
 Faced to the verge of death, and Death was there 
 Frowning his worst with all the raven wings 
 Of blackness anger'd to a sightless fire : 
 Then the Archgerent blazed infernal fire ; 
 Set on chimseras, such as Ixion got 
 On unsubstantial but conceptive cloud. 
 All his rebellious gods themselves discharge 
 Out from that cover on these angel hosts : 
 Parthonopseus took by quick surprise 
 Dryas in that short manner : in their scorn 
 The angels grasp and grapple with the foe ; 
 As Pollux grappled ; fury, fiiry met ; 
 Fierce contest rising to the height of pride. 
 Repulsive and abhorrent, mad and brave. 
 
 Up then the arms of war Lucifer raised ; 
 Brontes' were shiver' d, Arges' arms were crush' d. 
 But these, unwither'd though they were, look worn ; 
 As promontories wear 'gainst wind and tide : 
 
THE OHRISTIAD. 223 
 
 More menacing he fought ; his monsters fought 
 Grislier than the Oceanides, 
 Thaumas and dark Electra, might beget ; 
 She of Callirhoe to Chrysaor born, 
 Echidna, nothing could beget so grim j 
 Row'd-many were their teeth, design'd beyond 
 The dragon slain by Cadmus ; out they bit 
 Each other to the bone, vomiting fire : 
 The holy angels turn aside from them, 
 Like blasted trees, or rocks above the sea 
 Of battle, or like hills above the wind ; 
 Yet oft fell they to death ; when they so fell 
 Their voices were as thunder drown'd in blood ; 
 A dying thunder drown'd in blood and gore ; 
 As the Icelandic Geysers spout and spue. 
 In their last agonies, all grumous come 
 Their various humours, reddish, blueish, green : 
 A camelopard shoulder'd by a lion 
 Out-strikes the hoof; woe to the wild woodcats 
 Behind him ! so struck they when wounded till 
 Numbers cried out, beat-in of rib, ripp'd-up, 
 Unlimb'd ; Patrancosothos thus was spoil'd 
 For ever ; so was Thrimos ; they were sworn 
 With Pylon and Acostras, if the day 
 Went against Lucifer to take his life. 
 Open or covert, as their chances happ'd ; 
 He like a huge sea-worthless vessel plunging 
 Keel upward, mastless, in the ocean brine. 
 
224 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Ploughs with laborious effort through the main 
 Of battle, to the clouds presumptuous gone, 
 Anon cast down into its lowest depths ; 
 O'er mounts of slain he drives o'erpowering all, 
 EoUing from side to side ; ascension his 
 To desperative hope ; down then he goeth, 
 Beyond the reaches touch'd, to foul defeat 
 And worst depression : so a black Malay 
 Drunk-mad, knives, spears, and ataghans at hand, 
 Euns for his life the muck of farcied rage : 
 Long javelins he launch'd ; Dodonian oaks 
 And the tall pines by the Troezenian launch'd 
 To them were like the reeds which breezes bend, 
 Green bullrushes the hair of graceful streams 
 That babble music to a summer day ; 
 When lifted, even he was glad to send 
 Them whizzful from his aching arm, but they. 
 Like hghtnings wing'd awry, go all amiss 
 And ineffective ; then his redden' d shield 
 Shelters him from the vengeance which returns 
 Imperative ; his tranchant sword is put 
 Unto the purposes of self-defence j 
 Every nerve is strain' d, or fury hath 
 Some other sacrifice than he desired : 
 
 Thus the Archprincedom most portentous fought. 
 Headlong, headstrong, hardhanded j high the ground 
 He spurns, and spurns his mommies, brazen-hoof'd, 
 Savagely ; high above them Night to their 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 225 
 
 Loud larynx' d, most alarming, startling' neigh 
 Fights resolutely wild ; never before 
 Flamed Night so black a fury ; all the air, 
 If air it were, shrunk blighted as she flamed ; 
 Beyond the lines of matter that was felt, 
 Where the antipathetic world of dread 
 Afterwards kindled to eternal fire, 
 And overtook the ghosten'd gods of pride 
 In all the doom of secondary death ; 
 The suns that roU'd above turn sickly pale, 
 And all their skies seem clogging as they roll ; 
 God's angels ached to see it : so the fiend 
 Of subtlety, dog-bodied, with the claws 
 Of a great lion and unnatural breasts. 
 Her victims meditated from on high 
 With all the urgency of deathfulness ; 
 Dreader than was the sphynx, more vulturine, 
 And more determinately dire look'd Night, 
 Darting with all her batlike pinions down ; 
 As if her eyes for all the gods were prick'd. 
 Her mouth wide open to incrunch them all : 
 Her hair stands rampant up on end ; each hair 
 Ten living hydras heading, o'er her face 
 Continual rain of poison they distil, 
 Down to the serpentries that zone her waist : 
 Her wenny wings a fringe of serpents wear ; 
 And often as she swoop'd its million'd snakes 
 Of certain prey make sure; down Night would come T 
 
 Q 
 
226 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 But then those snakes so bit and stung his hosts 
 That Lucifer was fain to strike them off. 
 
 Now through the battle, brought to utmost bale, 
 Speeding a storm of shafts, Uriel went 
 Most archangelic forth: a bloody blain 
 Follows his sabred strokes : no better-hand 
 Having, both right and left ten blasting bolts 
 Seize, intercepting them with all their fire. 
 And back upon the sender send them with 
 The sense, if not the certainty, of death : 
 Whole legions fly before him ; squadrons seem 
 As nothing ; through the serried ranks he drives 
 Destructive, Death behind him banqueting 
 With the Thyestian gust : Lucullus, nor 
 Heliogabalus could sup like Death ; 
 Nor the six-headed monster : Ismarus 
 Was fell'd and burn'd in honour of one man ; 
 Millions of angels to Death's jaws are given 
 But no one sheds a tear ; Achilles mourn' d 
 His Patroclus, but no apostate god 
 Retain' d the possibility of tears : 
 Woe to the wicked ! those who loved in heaven, 
 As Pirithous to death loved Theseus, 
 So many loved each other then, hate now 
 Each the companion of his dearest thought ; 
 Who once the prime of virtue high enjoy'd. 
 Now that retributive destruction fell 
 Upon rebellion, discover hate. 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 22? 
 
 Antipathy, and bitterness of soul : 
 What fellowship hath sin, the lust of death 
 Exactly typifies ; the gracious sense 
 Of sympathy a perfume always wears, 
 But the unhallow'd sentiment becomes 
 Offensive to the nostril as it dies ; 
 And still the savour of its death must be 
 Detestable as corruption, horror, hell. 
 
 Here we must pause : humanity was thought 
 Too lowly for the trumpet blown to gods ; 
 Much it misgave us when alluding to 
 Such wrongs as shame to punishment deserved, 
 And the bad judge with the false pastor seem'd 
 Too insignificant in a blast like ours ; 
 But, lo ! the chain of being, from those worms 
 Up to the seven archangels, straight proceeds 
 From link to link ; and the like feeling binds 
 In a communicative bond the whole : 
 As with the angels even so with men, 
 Learn then from this example ; reader, learn ! 
 Ere the day come when thou shalt say " In time 
 I have no pleasure ;" all the dregs of wine 
 And mixed wine refuse ; for sun, moon, stars, 
 At length will darken, nor the growth return 
 After soft rain ; the keepers of our house 
 Must tremble when to age man's strength is bow'd ; 
 His teeth will cease to grind, his eyes fade dim ; 
 A strict account will be from us required, 
 q2 
 
228 THE CHKISTIAD. 
 
 And unto God the reckoning shall be paid ; 
 The sorceries of pride flee then as death, 
 And only love with the consent of heaven. 
 
 Woe in his wake, Uriel with martial might 
 Pursuing slew : so Hector slew the Greeks, 
 Now here, now there ; so some reflected wave 
 In a wide bay drives on, back, on, aside, 
 Unto the level : the archangel fought 
 For the inviolable King on high, 
 Himself scarce less inviolable : Faith 
 Invulnerable came on heartless Pride 
 And shamed it to the last of agonies. 
 
 Strike, strike the iron sixth ! five strings are struck 
 To our exalted height ; the iron sixth, 
 Melpomene, thy sister-muse commands; 
 Tragical queen, laurell'd Clio ! come 
 Gorgeously enrobed while unrestrain'd 
 Numbers unto the victor gods I raise. 
 Or from the fingers, flay'd by verse so hard, 
 The plectrum falls for thou inspirest this, 
 And promised wonders to our hand and wrist. 
 
 Like the huge Erymanthian boar rush'd down 
 Upon the hunter, gnashing all his teeth 
 The Anarch comes ; a thunderbolted lance 
 Like that which strong Electryon launch'd, he drove 
 Right against Uriel ; that lance went back 
 With added force and through his corslet pierced 
 The under-ribbed heart : on hurries Death 
 
THE CHBISTIAD, 239 
 
 Anticipative, but the Princedom's eyes 
 Blaze out upon him ; all the bands of Death 
 Like flax are burnt, or like Philistian withes 
 Are burst ; as burst the fond Busirian chains ; 
 Then down on Death a Corynetian flail 
 Fell ; as a rock upon a sea might fall ; 
 The billowy confusion drives on high 
 Foaming on heap ; waves dash on waves assail'd, 
 . And spiry horror leaves a gaping gulf, 
 A horrid whirlpool in th' aflrighted deep : 
 Voluminously back retreated Death 
 Clenching his latent claws ; his snaky feet 
 Hiss to the gnashing of his broken teeth ; 
 Upon him, like a Laocoon, they seize, 
 And no sea-monster Perseus saw like him, 
 So fearful Death appear'd : on either hand 
 His upflung arms like falling towers come down. 
 His central heads unto the ground are haled. 
 His glassy eyeballs start from every string 
 Harrow'd to the extremity of fear : 
 Distract looks he, like Caurus, all the earth 
 Intent to loose him from her breasted cave : 
 His thick and foetid breathings hurry forth. 
 As from a lazar-house worst plagues when aU 
 Who enter'd it, nurses and patients, lie, 
 With the physicians, smitten to their end ; 
 Those who respired them fell death-stricken, worse 
 Than Night could strike them : out shriek'd she more dread 
 
230 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Than Orpheus heard, Eurj'dice alarm'd 
 
 Like Iphiclus she shrieks, flitting away, 
 
 Mounting ten fiesy dragons ; all her limbs 
 
 Abominable went, falling away 
 
 Scatter'd ; as if from lolchos Medea 
 
 To Athens with Absyrtus drove with all 
 
 The spells of murder, dropping as she drove : 
 
 Before that sight of horror all his gods 
 
 And Lucifer, like Polydectes look : 
 
 Then no one longer thought his wounds to balm 
 
 By those curative drops of heaven's Tolu, 
 
 Of Gilead, or the amber-looking tears 
 
 Which poor Lampetie and her sisters shed : 
 
 And as Night flees another seems to flee, 
 
 Even their Princedom, for the two are bound 
 
 Together in one everlasting state : 
 
 A something in his hand th' Archgerent shook, 
 
 A something dreadful, not to be described ; 
 
 It could not be distinguish'd in the vague : 
 
 Night too her nine-score hands determined shook. 
 
 Flinging craped clouds to her unbounded bent 
 
 Over the wild confusion of the scene : 
 
 Did then the Prince-king flee ? Stooping to ground 
 
 More than an island he tore up, poised that 
 
 One moment o'er his head, and, all his might 
 
 Expending, hurl'd it : exacting Muse, 
 
 Assist us more and more ; sublime and open 
 
 Incredulous ears to latitudes so wide. 
 
THE CHBISTIAD. 231 
 
 Or ridicule will cover this attempt 
 To bring the actions of the gods within 
 The narrow comprehension of a page : 
 When from the Straits to Ceuta Hercules 
 Uptore the isthmus, the Atlantic rush'd 
 Into the middle sea, so now the whole 
 Terraqueous darkness groan'd and labour'd when 
 Indignant Uriel, in his turn, essays : 
 Night howls to see his effort when he stoop'd 
 Unto the ground requiring j matter felt 
 That it was helpless in such angel-hands : 
 Legions on legions look and see no more, 
 Cover'd by ruin, crush'd, choked dead, or drown'd 
 By the amazing fall of what he hurl'd ; 
 Back myriads drive, for what avail'd them then ? 
 Bespatter' d, blinded : all the captains flee 
 Fleeter than fled Hippomedon ; with them, 
 Discomfited and grazed to hurt, both Night 
 And the Archgerent forcibly are sent ; 
 Gauntlet, nor shield, nor blackness, them avail'd ; 
 Death ravening to have him, boldly turns 
 Again upon the Prince of angels with 
 His eyes enstoned and arms fully instrung : 
 A grip so sinewy took them that Death 
 Was lessen'd of these arms when, sorely pain'd 
 And terrified, he drew writhing therefrom ; 
 Acknowledging himself at fault with one 
 Who made Death miserable in look and deed : 
 
232 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 Night not observing him, more furious drove 
 
 Her cankerous dragons on, out wide stretch'd they ; 
 
 Like Draco ; or like those strange creatures which 
 
 All the mephitic hemispheres enjoy : 
 
 Trymenor then compelling all his bow, 
 
 Seven times seven arrows sent and one brought down ; 
 
 Alcides shot Periclymenos so : 
 
 Precipitous it comes, wide-gaping thing. 
 
 Filmy deformity, terrible shade 
 
 Sombre to deadness, an astonishment 
 
 To mystery, and wondrous but to think. 
 
 Then the apostate angels were reversed; 
 Battle against them everywhere raged on, 
 Escape seem'd not for them : their enemy 
 Everywhere at hand with untired arms 
 And ardour inexhaustible, fearful 
 Against themselves many the weapon turn'd : 
 Hemm'd in by fire, scorpions thus may turn 
 Their stings suicidally : countermined 
 Traitors themselves blow up : Moloch, gone mad. 
 Handling the sharpest sword, across his throat 
 Unguarded drew it : hardly was the cut 
 Felt in his skin when through the larynx rush'd 
 The breath that was his life out from the wound ; 
 Amazement to his pallid features came. 
 His hands drop to his side, the knees give way, 
 And with the jugular impulsion comes 
 An apparition of such fierceness that 
 
THE CHBISTIAD. 233 
 
 Horror was spell-bound, all confusion stopp'd, 
 And battle petrified a moment there. 
 
 Though hack'd, hewn, piked all o'er, beyond the reach 
 Of Chiron's styptic or of Paean's rue, 
 ApoUyon and Baal war resume 
 Immediately ; or what for war they meant ; 
 Infix' d were they with many a bearded dart. 
 Broke in wild fury off, but, reckless made, 
 Eesistance unto death they both resume. 
 Waging destruction : blast answereth blast, . 
 Assault assault returns with all its force, 
 And all the passages of arms are fought 
 With endless variation of the terms : 
 Haraphon fights as desperately possess'd, 
 Maintaining ample space on all sides round ; 
 Brutally bluff looks he, hacking and hewing 
 At everything opposed ; his vizor fall'n. 
 How gory red that face of fury is 
 With such exertion ! but his target faUs, 
 Right through that steel'd cuirass an arrow goes 
 Into his diaphragmic inward parts ; 
 All his hot brain shrinks back that dart to feel ; 
 His cuishes are unstain'd by blood, but soon 
 Pellucid ichor oozes from the wound, 
 His senses are dispersed with mortal pain. 
 His head turns dizzy and the eyesight fails ; 
 Exhaustion comes post-haste, but, still, the fight 
 Crazily he continues to the last 
 
234 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Animate moment that in life is his : 
 To him the war is hot, the battle strong ; 
 Though hope may not be named, depression vain ; 
 Intolerable is shame j he stands aghast 
 Before the thought of an eternal loss, 
 And ever rises to the height of scorn 
 Against the craven terrors of the place j 
 Thus valour, though mistaken valour, burns 
 For action in his breast, his heart enswells 
 Impatient fiiry, lawless rage for him 
 Derisive unto danger and to death ! 
 But prostrate lies his corpse ; the shades of night 
 Have sunk his soul so terrible, to all 
 The speechless horrors of a helpless state ; 
 That war no longer occupies his thought ; 
 The battle unto him for ever ends ; 
 A new existence seizes him in fright. 
 The fire that never ceases has a prey, 
 And the undying worm boasts gain on gain. 
 A thundering hill down upon Ekriel falls, 
 The primal Tityon ; his impious tongue. 
 Jaws, teeth and all, are with his body crush'd 
 One undistinguish'd mass : the spirit comes 
 Dreadful in death, flaming with all the flames 
 Of slaughterous rage to fear, gore-stain'd and mute ; 
 Loose floats its phantom hair upon the winds 
 Of horror 5 Horror shakes those eyes to see, 
 Fix'd in the stare, the mouth wide-ope agape j 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 235 
 
 Shuddering vengeance sinking it to hell 
 Enwrapt in flames, it goeth a captive sold 
 Into perdition, white, lorn, wUd, and mad. 
 
 Thus soul and body part ; the former past 
 Extenuation ; for the body, sin 
 Alone made that obnoxious unto death. 
 In man or angel : the biformed crew 
 To an amazing width stretch high the wing, 
 Up-dart their heads above the highest cloud. 
 And spread themselves in imitative fire j 
 The fire that Ceres kindled much more pale : 
 Their calls and cries were like Argestes' when 
 
 He rocks with terror to-and-fro the world ; 
 These dreadful creatures and their riders went 
 
 Breathless, blind, beaten, branded, whence they came ; 
 
 Like the foul vulture-flock which brave Calais 
 
 And Zethes drove unto the Strophades 
 
 Beyond Peloponnesus : back like them 
 
 Unwillingly went they peU-mell, unto 
 
 Their castled pretenture : renewing there. 
 
 Claws, iron wings, threatening voices, o'er 
 
 The outside ditch they 're driven, bruised, batter' d, broke. 
 
 Against the outside wall enmoted high : 
 
 Like the fire-breathing bulls that guarded close 
 
 For Mars the golden fleece, there Death and Night 
 
 And Lucifer are found : his fearful darts 
 
 Death shook and then elanced them to his bounds ; 
 
 Night also shook whetting the look of tusks. 
 
236 THE CHKISTIAD. 
 
 Waving her ramy wing-s, wrinkling her brow, 
 As if God's angels should be shred to nought 
 And made incorporate with dust or clay : 
 Immortal brightness theirs, on Death comes down 
 Such a compulsion and on Night, that both 
 Along the bristling passages of dread 
 Hasten nor look behind ; no legions they 
 Consider' d, but the holy angels fled 
 As more than legions when like that assail'd : 
 So clouds before the sun are shriveU'd up. 
 And light abroad resistlessly is spread : 
 
 Pierced though he was unto the soul, behold, 
 Indomptive Lucifer the haughty crest 
 Carries ; disdaining with those two to flee : 
 Though Death well-nigh dissolved with fear before 
 Those mighty warriors, the Archgerent scorn'd 
 Their visionary flight while contest rose 
 Upon the threshold of his power renew'd : 
 In the anticipation of such use 
 As now imperatively they required. 
 Or all was lost and God on high rejoiced, 
 Gleam'd then his weapons of defence aloft ; 
 And weapons of ofifence flash far and wide 
 To cover his thrice decimated hosts. 
 Until the last survivor through the gate 
 Passing, with might and main the portals too 
 Are forced to grating thunder, on the hinge 
 Regrating back the hoarse but welcome noise. 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 287 
 
 And now, in turn, the baffled Anarch there 
 Is close besieged ; on such imperious terms 
 That no conditions offer'd ; none wish'd he, 
 Unquell'd in senseless pride and hate intense : 
 Pride mortal who can tame ? or who the bent 
 Of mortal hate can master in a man ? — 
 The pride and hate of gods as far exceed 
 Those of humanity as gods exceed 
 The dwarf 'd proportions of our fallen race : 
 As far beyond all language also went 
 The various exploit following that 
 Incarceration ; oft from some odd vent. 
 
 Like wolves in pack the rebel angels rush 
 
 Forth hungering for a prey ; their myths were oft 
 
 Mounted for foray that some fruit should bear 
 
 To desperation ; these in ghastly sort 
 
 Of apparition often ventured when 
 
 Any surprise might seem to hope within 
 
 The unknown scope of possibility ; 
 
 Then brooding Battle rose for regular war, 
 
 And the distraction to a ferment went. 
 
 All the irregnilarity of war 
 
 Immediately ensuing: in the day 
 
 Of angels which one thousand of our years 
 
 Squares to the apprehension, time was found 
 
 For frequent skirmish; tedium was denied 
 
 The brave besiegers ; at the last, when they 
 
 Expected no such foe, the Anarch came 
 
238 THE CHHISTIAD. 
 
 Himself, swoop'd down all unaware, and now 
 Disastrous fall ensued, but the archangel 
 Feeling the far projected shadow, turn'd 
 Suddenly round on him with guarded arms 
 And cried resentful, " What ! art thou emerged 
 Out of thy den of shame ? too sanguine prince. 
 Thus self-delivered when we vainly sought 
 From bastard pride the valour that it vaunts ; 
 From us the welcome heartily receive ! " 
 
 " Arrest that stroke or it will fall to ground " 
 Lucifer cries, moving aside but stem- 
 Eying his grand opponent ; " Taunt not us 
 With disappointed hope, for thou shalt hope 
 With more than disappointment in the hour 
 When our unconquerable will survives 
 Such trial as to times adverse belongs ; " 
 So saying up flung he the sword of wrath. 
 But Uriel fencing that retorts " Fall'n king 
 Of the demented Powers, reflection leaves 
 Both thee and them pitiful in the sight 
 Of heaven and an abhorrence unto us : 
 Is it for this thou didst revolt from Him 
 Who named thee as the prince of wondrous might ; 
 And crown'd that princedom chiefest found on high ? 
 For this the third of heaven abducted came 
 Into thy evil way ; their souls are snared 
 By flatteries and lies that we lay bare : 
 How art thou fall'n from glory ; would that all 
 
THE CHKISTIAD. 239 
 
 Received the Anarchist as I receive ! " 
 
 With that over his head erect outblazed 
 His sacred sword ; blazing like brass to sweep 
 Remediless destruction on the prince- 
 Apostate : he, unfearing' that, replies, 
 " Servile adorer, thine are sounding words 
 Which only vassal crowds might hear to praise ; 
 Send for the slavish harps they left behind 
 That thy great lord and master may be sung ; 
 Prankt as thou art in finery, a harp 
 Became our Uriel better than the sword, 
 Obnoxious to these yet successful arms ! 
 And know thy lord shall tremble at the feet 
 Whose freedom Kes beyond the reach of fate, 
 Although the glorious gods uncompass yet 
 The round of tyranny nor touch God's head : " 
 
 He ceased, to fence a dazzling stroke that comes 
 Like lightning on the bold blasphemer down ; 
 Fresh blows are put with all his strength aside, 
 Intent to speed a safe and quick return : 
 Down straight then Uriel hews, ashamed to find 
 Retreat in that o'er-boasted potent's thought : 
 His hand cleaves to his sword ; dex'trously used 
 Not only as to Uriel, for some braves, 
 Coming within the circuit, that repent : 
 Then did the duel thicken ; Friminos, 
 Accandrar, and the daring Agaphine, 
 Come to his help, the mighty Uriel struck 
 
340 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Dead with a mortal pain ; Rasichthinos 
 
 Run through, acknowledged hiin in anguish ; through 
 
 In his excess of might th*^ archangel smote 
 
 Toron and others with him : to the knee 
 
 Lucifer in an evil parry went ; 
 
 The blast of the swift stroke that sent him there 
 
 Drove numbers down upon their faces dead. 
 
 Thus mighty Uriel ; and when weapons fail'd, 
 As oft they did, so many were required, 
 Huge fragments of their works, like Savendroeg, 
 He seized and, swinging them right round discharged 
 With more than cannon force to rout and rage : 
 Nomron and Scholaf by such rocks were slain ; 
 Hophra, and Saropheli ; Pholeus fierce, 
 Hyprostar, Hammonak^ and Thrydaom ; 
 Mighty were all the names, but what avails 
 Might to the fallen angels ? they are given 
 A prey unto the spoiler : two-edged swords 
 End Horrinthryntor and his chosen band ; 
 Each sword struck double and its due received : 
 Darts all unerring from his fury flew. 
 O'er cowering numbers whither they were aim'd : 
 No god within arm's length could come and hope 
 To save his life from Uriel ; though he fought 
 Apparently against but only one : 
 In his supremest strength Lucifer fights ; 
 He lifteth up, the clouds to darkness turn ; 
 He bringeth down, the whole terrene is shook ; 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 241 
 
 He moves, a whirlwind rises that this earth 
 
 More than sufficed to turn against the whirl 
 
 Diurnal, and, so turning, spin earth out 
 
 Unravell'd nebulosity to space : 
 
 Yet all his rag-e came short ; his blows are dealt 
 
 Ably, but not like Uriel's ; not one wound 
 
 Had he inflicted : can th' immortals hope 
 
 For ever against hope, and hate sustain 
 
 To utter foolishness as men will do ? 
 
 He suffers loss of blood ; he reels, but still 
 
 Had Alps been there through them such arrows pierced : 
 
 So all his thunders went, or what they once 
 
 CaU'd thunder, to the last ; pride, shame, forbid 
 
 Retreat but he returns when they are spent, 
 
 Stalk'd backward, with his shield hammer' d, his crown 
 
 Cloven, his plate and mail indented o'er : 
 
 Arrows and lances, spears and deadly darts. 
 
 Fly at him, bristling as a common mark : 
 
 Plied thus, pierced he must be with all but force 
 
 Fatal ; fatality to him attach' d. 
 
 Out of his hand a mischanced axe destroys 
 
 Grothor behind him : then a stunning blow 
 
 Disabled his right side ; down fell what stood 
 
 For ten great wings, down his robustious arm 
 
 Dropp'd render'd useless ; for a summons came 
 
 At once into his brain ; into his mouth, 
 
 Through the crush' d palatals the pulp divine 
 
 Descending bloodies all his inward breast ; 
 
242 THE CHHISTIAD. 
 
 A white-eyed pallor o'er his members creeps, 
 
 Yet still he breathed, lived, fought, retired, revived 
 
 Ever as these he did ; his streaming eyes 
 
 Staunch'd by a more than ^sculapian art. 
 
 And cranium quick reintegrated by 
 
 The solder of a most determined will : 
 
 He gasps recover" d ; close behind him lies 
 
 That lower terrace ; with a desperate bound 
 
 The vantage ground of Night and Death he gains : 
 
 The holy armies up to Uriel rush 
 
 Against their ready hosts : Sacrael mounts 
 
 Driving against their tower ; the combat turns 
 
 There with a merciless resolve tUl Night 
 
 From the sanguineous flood shrunk back within 
 
 The iron lintels of their fortress' d power : 
 
 Huge efforts then were made, one side to keep, 
 
 The other take those lintels ; on their hinge 
 
 Depended destiny : old Priam's power. 
 
 The Hecatompylonian gate, nor gate 
 
 Phoenician, nor the Babylonian power 
 
 Was ever fought like that ; when Titus pitch'd 
 
 Round Hierosalem, and Mahmoud fought 
 
 Against Constantinopolis, when Eome 
 
 By the great constable Bourbon was fought. 
 
 Or fought by Alaric, child's play was theirs : 
 
 In feudal times crusading kings were fierce. 
 
 The lion-hearted king of England first ; 
 
 The son of Ccelus overcame his sire, 
 
THE CHBISTIAD. 243 
 
 The proud Olympian fiercer was than he ; 
 Then Demogorgon Caucasus avenged 
 Mightily on resisting Jupiter ; 
 But what were these, although renown'd the most ■ 
 In epic tomes and storied words of fame ? 
 Intensify our verses, Muse ! with fire. 
 And Terror wait thereon aspiring after 
 That signal hour when for his outlaw'd life " 
 
 Lucifer fought with all the might of limbs 
 Indescribable and an equal strength ; 
 So that his presence seem'd like fiame dissolved, 
 Refluxion'd, bounding, then rebounding back 
 To the lividity of direst flame : 
 Those Princedoms too, bodied with threat appear'd 
 Unbodied when their threatenings were fulfiU'd j 
 Smiting together, the archangels seem'd 
 Destructive lightnings at right angles met 
 And clash'd by Lucifer : with thunder down 
 Whirling their falchions, back often they went 
 Up-struck like straw-motes it so idle seem'd : 
 Their all of valour thus was frequent wreak'd. 
 Yet more for ever in reserve was found 
 More ruinous, from which seem'd no appeal ; 
 One or the other must sink conquer' d, which 
 Of such dread combatants might hang in doubt 
 And be disputed, nor the gods could say : 
 Mutually judged for doom, bottomless void 
 Gaped to receive aU three, their being wreck' d 
 R 8 
 
244 THE CHHISTIAD. 
 
 Into the shoreless and eternal sea, 
 
 Sunk to the bottom : " Go ! " cried Uriel and, 
 
 Melpomene, how he smote ! Unto its core 
 
 Space shivering groan'd when down mis-spent it came : 
 
 " Go thou !" cried his offensor sending down 
 
 Tempestuous cloud that shut the three from sight ; 
 
 Then the vagued space shiver'd and groan'd again : 
 
 Thus, awful, they, dimming the farthest stars. 
 Shaking the universal vast of space : 
 Unbearable were their looks if any dared 
 Through the red grinding storm at them to glance : 
 Antagonist they fought together ; like 
 Three elemental worlds diversely clash'd 
 Into each other's most repulsive arms, 
 Their every atom with the rest at war ; 
 Torrents of opposition torrents met. 
 Fires penetrated fires contrariwise 
 With infinite repugnance to dispart 
 Confounded, or, inextricable, bur;i 
 TUl the fierce duellists to nothing go 
 Annihilated mutually then : 
 Name no ^toUan chief, though famous one 
 Is reckon'd amongst men j these gods were all 
 Depraved to littleness compared with him. 
 Though fiercest, bravest : frowning they put to 
 Such thrilling strife of weapons as erects 
 Each hair upon the head to think of, and 
 Pains to the very marrow all one's bones : 
 
THE CHRI8TIAD. 245 
 
 What mortal on sucli combatants might look 
 And live ? What pen their high attempt may reach 
 A non-conductor to the lightnings which 
 Shiver, if they destroy not, all our frame ? 
 They tingle through us, all our mind alarm'd 
 For this imperfect, insufficient, sketch ; 
 Though it be faced to bombast in the teeth 
 Of that blind ignorance which thinks of gods 
 Like men, and knows not that our best to theirs 
 Is laughter, foUy, ridicule, and shame. 
 
 Gaining the threshold of the rebel power. 
 One foot thereon secured, Uriel deals 
 A still more cogent blow ; heroically 
 He stands aU the resistance raised beyond 
 Preceding fury : with vindictive arm 
 And ample sweep of sword, Lucifer fain 
 Would that possession dispossess to force 
 And lay the brave invader in the dust; 
 No lesser vengeance satisfied the wrath 
 Challenged by Uriel ; but Uriel with 
 Another ponderous blow asunder cut 
 The weapon vainly thirsting for his life ; 
 One half thereof goes hurtling to the skies. 
 The other flung in anguish to the ground 
 Impotence was confessed : defenceless made, 
 Belligerents fill up the outer courts, 
 That citadel half won ; the engines lost 
 Which mounted all the masonry extern : 
 
246 THE CHKISTIAD. 
 
 These turn'd upon himself, the rebel sees 
 Remorseless devastation set to work, 
 Column and capital and cornice too 
 Falling' before it : but, 0, who that tower. 
 Hideously though they war, can hope to rive ? 
 That solid, keyless, adamantine, fort 
 Reck'd Uttle storm of fire or hail of lead : 
 But still the conduct of that siege was given 
 To Rhytoron who Baal overthrew; 
 Under him Pathrynos who ApoUyon fell'd : 
 Redoubted Eunymos brought. Other low. 
 From him Propaliton and Zinor fled ; 
 Eusthynes, Mazobar, and Theophract, 
 Were overcome by Crothar ; Phalton slew 
 Vathec ; Abaddon was by Dremos slain ; 
 Ziphroth, Atrinomon, and Barachos 
 With Athbrascantes, thrice their numbers drove 
 With ghastly gashes down ; Napomened 
 Smote seven successively, blood-drench' d the ground ; 
 These the distinction won that siege to head 
 And order aU the heaviest batteries 
 To an incessant effort of offence ; 
 To the embrasure they were pointed blank. 
 And Mulciber carelessly looking forth 
 Fell dead where he so fatally appear'd. 
 Then Lucifer a secret council held : 
 Within a shrine known only to himself, 
 More secret than the golden chambers wrought 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 247 
 
 For the superior gods of Heathendom, 
 More latent than diplomacy can think, 
 Machiavellian wickedness conceive, 
 Thither his two remaining chiefs are call'd 
 To hear, not share, some feelings irom the breast 
 Of anguish'd pride that, still, despair abhorr'd, 
 Scorning to shame the certainty of death : 
 The day went hard against them but such gods, 
 Though no alternative was theirs to choose, 
 Scouted despair ; their tower an end must have. 
 But haughtily the crisis he defied ; 
 His regents too defied, come what come might : 
 .Whole legions to surrender gave their thought. 
 And numbers threw away the arms which proved 
 Useless, but hope held on and he knew still. 
 He confidently knew that God must fail 
 Before impugnabUity like his : 
 Inviolable hate supreme would reign 
 Over the ravish'd sovereignty on high 
 When the eternal ages of revenge 
 Propitious on the worth of valour rose ; 
 From that nothing detracted, that remain'd 
 Prerogatived as royal, only that ! 
 
 The o'erthrown Baal, still with blood besmear'd, 
 Hearing him speak so confidently, ask'd 
 Lucifer as the ablest of the gods. 
 In such exceeding strait what could be done ? 
 Confusion tended worse than fear surmised ; 
 
248 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 Dreadful was their extremity : all hope 
 Forsook, or threaten'd to forsake the gods, 
 And vengeance unto consummation came 
 If now the puissant Power of arms did not 
 Perform the wonders long by them expect : 
 Beleaguer'd thus, from Ul to ill they went ; 
 The noise of routous arblasts 'gainst their walls 
 Batter'd the ear equally with the tower; 
 One sheer from hope, the other force, must fall : 
 " Are there" cried he, " necessity and fate 
 Por those who forged such arms as all supposed 
 Supreme against both fate and God himself? 
 Those arms are tum'd upon us with such wounds 
 As few may bear and, bearing, stQl hold on 
 Confidence in themselves or trust in thee : 
 Is it too late our conduct to review 
 Beyond repentance ? that never can come 
 Into remorseless hearts stone-changed like ours : 
 We, the first smiters, are in kind repaid 
 With added interest from the hated Throne ; 
 Who such a peerless height of warfare thought. 
 Or in God's angels such exceeding power? 
 If He deign not to lead them, the Almighty 
 Inspires His servants far above the arm 
 Which the Archgerent hath, as yet, put forth : 
 Subserviency is brave, even to spurning 
 The Luciferian altitude ; yet, still. 
 To Lucifer, though doubtfully, the gods 
 
THE CHBISTIAD. 249 
 
 Send their expectant eyes for such exploit 
 
 As through this pass our hosts alive shall bring, 
 
 Even though the honours of the war are lost:" 
 
 ApoUyon only lived since Pathrynos 
 Left him disabled, but thereto he adds 
 Greater affront, declaring that for acts 
 Of might and councils of resistless deed 
 Lucifer was exalted to his state : 
 From their captivity of death to life 
 He, even he, must raise them or be brought 
 Into a shame, a hissing, and contempt, 
 A byeword to the deities destroy'd 
 By the sad confidence in him misplaced : 
 Uriel was, surely ! not above the strength 
 Which sought an opportunity with his Lord, 
 Boasting omnipotence; no harder blow 
 Could aU their legions deal than what was struck 
 Before such lamentation on them came : 
 What gain from rage ensued, to them was lost 
 In the degenerating mind when rage 
 Lower'd immortal natures; this they knew 
 By worst experience, ever most defenceless 
 Made by the foaming froth of raving rage : 
 Unto the earnest now their chief must rise 
 Over compulsion ; he must overpower 
 Necessity itself : by no default 
 Of theirs, so dolorous the contest went ; 
 And if his legions were dishearten' d, both 
 
260 THE CHHISTIAD. 
 
 To impotence of mind and body, they 
 Succumb'd to an abasement whicb was his : 
 Deplorable condition ! far beyond 
 The possibility of any thought ; 
 Pitiable to see, but pride and scorn, 
 The memory of their past and present hate. 
 Their future blackness to despair, forbade 
 Pity as an outrageous wrong to them. 
 
 Throned in his state even there, the Gerent look'd 
 Tempest but spake not ; willing to defer 
 The final moment : deathlike silence reigns 
 Over that conclaved scorn, pride, shame, and dread ; 
 And an eternal grief had also reign'd 
 But scorn, and pride, and shame, that grief forbade. 
 Feeding the hungry passions bom of hate : 
 Baal resumes ; the Anarch when he spoke 
 Starting from his profundity of thought 
 To hear what invocation Baal then 
 Address'd to helplessness ; helpless he was, 
 And yet that chieftain call'd on him to do 
 What to supremacy of might belong'd j 
 He should subserve their glory as behoved 
 The style and title of that high estate 
 Which God, and then his armies, to him gave : 
 If two archangels who but yesterday 
 Humbly awaited in his presence, tore 
 The crown from off his head that God had pleased, 
 It were less marvel than to lose the crown 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 251 
 
 Committed to his honour by the gods 
 When, moved by him, revolt ran riot, they 
 Promised by him all the subjected heavens : 
 Worst misery was theirs to be refused. 
 Deceived, vrhere they expected most from his 
 Assurance ; 'twas unbearable ; no complaint 
 Carried such terms of scorn as that deserved : 
 If he were frustrated, confess the fact 
 To truth : if he were in the power of those 
 Contemptuous deities who shut them in 
 Pris'ners, incalculable shame was theirs ; 
 Day was to them extinct ; they were exposed 
 To everlasting darkness, horror, shame : 
 But, no ! Frustrate Jehovah ! Such a prince 
 Of majesty to aU his height would rise ; 
 That siege should soon be raised, the realms of light 
 Regain'd, recover' d, by his single arm, 
 And laughter drive from his superior throne 
 The Power that abject Flattery maintain'd. 
 Apollyon then their fallen state bewails ; 
 " We are unequal to a time like this" 
 Said he despondent ; " still it is beyond 
 Belief that all the deities are lost 
 By that proud king who promised to himself 
 And us the very Empery of heaven : 
 To us intolerable death is come 
 From the decrees of an eternal throne ; 
 On our embattled hosts God's angels fell. 
 
252 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Turning to foul discomfiture our arms : 
 Spurn our beleaguers to superior ruin ! 
 Discomfit them with more exceeding loss ! 
 Conquer the whole ! for thou to us didst promise 
 To conquer them in God their sovereign Lord." 
 Then Lucifer endured that dear-bought sense, 
 Experience ; all his hope to shame crush'd down 
 Soon as across his troubled mind it thrill'd : 
 Prideful, he thought the Throne of thrones to mount, 
 Or aU its piUar'd pomp to overthrow 
 In the perdition of the King of Kings ; 
 Now the emergent case in which they stood 
 Visibly show'd destruction come to him ; 
 His legions were disjointed till they seem'd 
 Ridiculous, their arms a mock'ry made ; 
 Discomfiture was his until his chiefs 
 Were fain to stand apart with folded arms ; 
 Reproachful words he heard to whom reproach 
 Was gall and wormwood j did not that imply 
 An accusation which no pride could brook 
 But under pressure that no god can bear ? 
 The wounds inflicted by th' undying worm 
 Then in his conscience gaped, and burst with sore 
 Corruption as they burst : evasion seem'd 
 Impossible to those distractful looks 
 Fix'd firm upon him : in its latest bud 
 Confidence withering died ; if confidence 
 From that arch-enemy of God could die : 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 253 
 
 He wrestles with himself, or what himself 
 Seem'd, momentary, to him, to survive 
 The long indictment which had cast a less 
 Indomptive spirit ; confirmation comes 
 Visibly to his face ; high back the head 
 He throws ; his features brighten in the dark 
 Saturnine glances which at them he throws 
 And with imperial gesture these says he, 
 
 " The first of monarchies is ours by that 
 Which conquers in the end : the final throw 
 For empire is, beyond aU doubt, secured 
 To us ; and ye defame the sovereign Throne 
 Which only summon'd but required no aid : 
 If we miscalculated all our arms. 
 To us remain what left those arms efiete 
 And little for the end resolved by us : 
 The contributions duly brought by you, 
 Were not declined because in them I saw 
 A loyal merit ; merit you forego 
 In thus abandoning your part : we warr'd 
 Though to no purpose ; war avail'd not us : 
 Above the accidental strife, our foes 
 Stand safe ; but all the five archangels found 
 Such might against the throne of heaven array'd 
 As leaves that throne for ever in suspense : 
 Henceforth I strike no secondary Power ; 
 The seven inferior chairs be our contempt." 
 
 He said decisive, and the council stopp'd 
 
254 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Rising from off the presidential throne 
 
 With more than anger in his awful looks : 
 
 Amazed and mute the two co-regents see 
 
 Both him and Night retire : deep underground, 
 
 Through caverns longer than the one beneath 
 
 Tsenarus, or the long Campanian cavern, 
 
 Or that near Acheron in Epirus found, 
 
 Thoughtful pass'd hej through all the principles 
 
 Terrestrial and subcoelar bound around 
 
 The outer circle of that embryo sphere, 
 
 Great Lucifer and Night together pass : 
 
 What poets feign of chaos older than 
 
 Vesta, all that, and more outrageous, he 
 
 Saw, penetrating to profounder chaos, 
 
 All the arcana of his usurped power : 
 
 The nine-fold Styx they pass ; whatever else 
 
 To darkness appertains, and all the force 
 
 Which to the name of empire may belong : 
 
 There his fell Fate appears ; « What art thou ? Say ! " 
 
 Cried Lucifer, his burning eyes tore out, 
 
 CEdipus-like, lest evermore he saw : 
 
 Sepulchral were the tones sepulchral sent j 
 
 Eacus, Minos, Rhadamanthus, when. 
 
 United, they Tantalian dooms pronounce. 
 
 Speak not as then that dreadful dira spoke : 
 
 Night, boding, heard that more than ghostly talk. 
 
 Two such interlocutors unapproach'd ; 
 
 Death, from the centre risen, fell, whited, back 
 
THE CHBISTIAD. 255 
 
 In all th' embodied grime which was his own : 
 " Thou ever-living Might," th' Archgerent cried, 
 
 " Reigning through all this spiritual brain, 
 
 Crawling through all my veins, whence comest thou?" 
 
 " Thy child, on Destiny begotten, see ! " 
 
 "My chUd! Down, down be trampled!" With a strength 
 
 Equivalent and more, the sphere he plucks 
 
 And all its mass confess'd the strain of might : 
 
 Titan pluck' d not like that j nor he who brought 
 
 To the Ismenian the Delphic strid 
 
 When on mount (Eta in those dying pangs 
 
 Pines were torn up and hurl'd, poor Lichas dead ; 
 
 He too who carried off the gates of Gath, 
 
 Hight Atlas by the heathen, at the feast 
 
 Of Dagon, though the princes of Ashdod, 
 
 Ekron, and Askalon were overthrown 
 
 By his compulsion, never strain'd like that ! 
 
 With such an importunity the poles 
 
 Were by the great Archprincedom drawn, that they 
 
 No more resist him than the finest tow 
 
 Resists the fierceness of consuming fire ; 
 
 Matter confess'd him, thus asserted to 
 
 The supereminence of godlike might, 
 
 Combustive ruin on his head fall'n in : 
 Suicidally done ! but had he drunk 
 
 What made the never-sleeping dragon snore. 
 
 Had he drunk Styx and Lethe, all were nought 
 
 Against the memory of that awful shade : 
 
256 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 The sleepless dragon into slumber falling, 
 Lyeophron, nor emaciated Rhamnuse, 
 Were liken'd to it ; there it stood, between 
 The life that was and death the life to come : 
 The shape was nameless as the ghosts within 
 The Lebadsean cave ; a gory gloom, 
 Damnation : oh tremendous ! it usurps 
 The Anarch ; with such usurpation dead 
 But reincorporated with that Fate : 
 Evil, since thy beginning three days breed 
 This horrid consequence ! And there! see Death 
 On the Archgerent's body, hunger-pain'd ; 
 What was desired so dearly, that Death has 
 Like Pelops : Night goes vertigo'd away ; 
 Without remission, through the outer void, 
 Hellward the miserable three are sped. 
 
 With an inexpiable hate the rebels. 
 Involved in that catastrophe, are slain. 
 And sped by the necessity of the law 
 Attractive, in their wake though far behind : 
 Perdition unappeasable swoops down 
 Unto his surfeit : maledictions then 
 Were heard that Hecate dare not hint at here j 
 Shuddering Fear is mute to think of them : 
 His was the infamy they cried ; 'twas his ! 
 The gods by the Archgerent were betray'd ; 
 Damnation seize his soul ! They fleet away 
 By more than a Numidian poison thaw'd 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 257 
 
 To all the hissing horrors of the hour : 
 
 The sphere itself, from hollowness fall'n in 
 By that huge Luciferian act, would go 
 After, but wings were wanted to the wish : 
 Whether from its inherent nature, or 
 From dread that so astonishing an imp 
 Had denn'd its centre, like a thing of life 
 Which dies if out the stomach comes not to 
 The retching's of a putrid snake within. 
 At length with constant urgings out it burst 
 Asunder, all the fragments scatter'd wide : 
 What heavenly principles of things that chaos 
 Withstood, were chiefly overcome or spoilt : 
 The golden-appled trees fair ^gle kept 
 Beyond the ocean, then were changed to those 
 Which Proserpine in the Avernian wood 
 Desired : fairer than Cairo's groves, or those 
 Lycsean Pan possess' d, sweet-essenced flowers, 
 Like the amomum, roses, beauteous more 
 Than sainted Francis' of Assizi were, 
 Without one thorn, baccar, acanthus, Ind- 
 Like and Sabsean grasses, such as fringed 
 Peneus, by the Bacchic tigers eaten. 
 For want of the celestial dews were lost 
 Long while before : but to this hour remain'd 
 The rubyfied rocks and radiants rare 
 That glisten' d, like high icebergs in the moon ; 
 Fold thou mine eyes CalUope while I frame 
 
 s 
 
268 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 The splendid catalogue ; acanticone, 
 Alalite, analcine, augite, bildstein, 
 Botryolite, cornelian, celestine, 
 Datolite, dipyre, moonstone, pyrochlore, 
 Plasma, prase, pyrope, quartz, scherbenkobalt, 
 SideroscMzolite, sun-opallite. 
 Talc, telluret, tincal, endellion. 
 Feldspar, fluor, fulg^ite, garnet, blende, 
 Witb all their sapphirine and satin shades : 
 Inwoven purples, paly, plumy, pearls 
 Express them not ; sardonyx, sardius, 
 Chrysoprasus, and chrysolite, topaz. 
 Amethyst, jacinth, beryl, iU explain 
 Their wonder : jewels most on earth admired. 
 Were common stones in the comparison : 
 But the most precious relic of the heavens 
 Primordial, came down, God-given, to us ; 
 Muse ! let us tell, though foolish Midas smile 
 To find it in our Coronation chair : 
 That stone Aurora unto Tithonus 
 One morning at the foot of Ida show'd, 
 Tithon to Brito ; he, forewarn'd before 
 The fall of Troy, set sail and to these isles 
 Their true palladium brought : lerne first 
 Received it ; witness her Dardanian harp : 
 Next Caledonia ; the i$!tolian King- 
 In Caledonia slew the brawny boar : 
 England, the seat of Empire, last receives ; 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 259 
 
 Upon our towers the grasshopper we mount 
 In memory of the giver : Alexandrine- 
 Victoria ! higher than the Quirite blood, 
 Thine is the blood of Teucer ; Priam was 
 Usurping ; thine also is Roman blood ! 
 And now from Cyrrha's grot no draught need I 
 To spell thy line heaven-born and fortune blest ; 
 Urania often from the skies descends 
 Admiring when, Londinium lapp'd in sleep. 
 Thy loving laureat to the dazzled stars 
 That faticidal stone with pride reveals ; 
 Then the old abbey gloams and all thy Line 
 Of crowned kings, past and to come, appears ; 
 Then 'tis the sons of Belial fear to see 
 Unwonted lightnings flashing through the streets. 
 While such as are belated in the cause 
 Of goodness think Aurora risen full soon ; 
 Or think good angels light them to their homes. 
 Safe in the shadow of thy crown, Queen ! 
 
 s 2 
 
BOOK YII. 
 
THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 Religion, who helped him thus far, is blessed by our author 
 and entreated to continue the Poem in relation of the final scene : 
 Upon the conclusion of the last act. Almighty God reveals His 
 Son to all the holy angels : Passing gloriously through heaven. 
 The Son goeth forth to inhabit the world which had been or- 
 dained to order; and our terrestrial system is thereupon added 
 to dominion : The creation of Eve completes the joy ; but Lucifer 
 seduces her and Adam falls from his divine allegiance. 
 
 Rejoicing at the lapse of worlds, the apostate Princedom 
 announces the fact to Hell; Pandemonium rises in all the magni- 
 ficence of a capitol for the rebellious spirits. 
 
 Time. — The scene is first in heaven, commencing with the fourth 
 day ; the Book occupies the fifth and sixth days. 
 
BOOK VII. 
 
 Blessed be thou Religion ! in the east 
 
 Our guiding star ; whether through shiny seas 
 
 I sail, or, tempest-driven, the canvass torn, 
 
 Mast overboard, unmanageable the helm, 
 
 The breakers of a dangerous coast are rode ; 
 
 Sometime within the queenly smile I bask'd, 
 
 All things abounding, store of wealth, rich friends ; 
 
 Friends but in name, for soon the heartless world 
 
 Saw me a barefoot palmer, crustless sent 
 
 Cruelly forth, but thou wast both my staff, 
 
 My comforter, and my unerring guide ! 
 
 Yea bless'd be thou who, while these songs I chant 
 
 Before the eternal throne, accompanying stand'st 
 
 With look devout, raising thy harpist up 
 
 Into the inspiration of the theme : 
 
 The Hereditary King and Thunderer lists 
 
 Our anthem'd trumpet-blast of martial praise 
 
 From inexpressible exploits that no 
 
 Bellerophon could twangs in Rhodope, 
 
264 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Nor any Thracian to the routous mob ; 
 
 Thou art our safeg^uard from an ignorant rage. 
 
 Our faith, our hope, defence, security ! 
 
 Heaven's war and siege on war are sung, now lift 
 
 Adoring Numbers to the hope renew'd 
 
 By man from grace to the surprise of Hell : 
 
 But for such godlike verse let us refresh 
 
 At Zion's Helicon ; there I will slake 
 
 With ever-living waters all my soul. 
 
 Now had the victors from those finish'd wars 
 With joy triumphant through the golden gates 
 Of welcoming heaven return' d, unto the Lord 
 Of Glory coming with the great report 
 Of what the Anarch in his fury did j 
 The All-surveying through the serene skies 
 Look'd out spaceward and the expectant orbs 
 In ruination to reflection took : 
 Within Himself the King of Glory thought, 
 Reflecting upon all created things : 
 Divine Abstraction, the shekinah saw ; 
 The inaccessible-iii-secret God 
 Intentive weighing actions unto will : 
 The seven archangels worship where God sate 
 Paternal Deity upon the throne, 
 Guarding themselves in silence : Zephyr, more 
 Balmy than was the Occident that bore 
 Psyche to Eros, paused : nymphs of the sea 
 And rivers which the pagan poets call 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 265 
 
 Tethys, her fairest daughter Amphitrite, 
 
 The silver-footed Thetis, Thoa clear, 
 
 Panope, Pherusa, Cymodoce, 
 
 Callianira, Msera, Cymothoe, 
 
 Melita, Doto, Glauce, Galatea, 
 
 Janira, Dexamene, and so forth ; 
 
 More heauliful than Venus in the veil 
 
 Wove by the Graces ; those also which own'd 
 
 The park'd palatinates of paradise, 
 
 Dryads, or Hamadryads, Oreads ; 
 
 And all that carried in their helpful hands 
 
 The Amalthean urns from which were shed 
 
 Replenishment of bloom, the Hquid love. 
 
 And vernal rainbows, over heaven's parterres, 
 
 Painting their passions on the peerless flowers ; 
 
 All these Phantasians, and the birds that make 
 
 Rich Pandionian music, (the bulbul 
 
 To Hafez or Sadi made none like theirs, 
 
 Juno's proud peacocks envied all their plumes,) 
 
 Were still'd ; they all were still'd to ecstasy : 
 
 Fountains, than Aganippe, Hippocrene, 
 
 Or Arethuse, more limpid, ceased to flow, 
 
 All warbling silenced at that solemn time : 
 
 Time, like a river frost-suspended in 
 
 The holy moonlight, seem'd to move no more ; 
 
 The heavenly dial paused to mark, but made 
 
 No motion on the axis of his round ; 
 
 And ether paled to joy before the Light 
 
266 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Which in the holy place adoring stopp'd, 
 
 All his emblazon'd hands on high upheld : 
 
 Solemnar were the skies, unsounding streams, 
 
 Hush'd seas, most watchful winds, entranced airs. 
 
 His angels bending breathless while Jehovah, 
 
 Apart, Alone, First, Blessed, with Himself, 
 
 Expressive Majesty, communed retired : 
 
 The Lord of angels, the eternal Lord, 
 
 Lord of the thunder. Monarch sole of gods. 
 
 Life of all life, the All-beholding, Knowing, 
 
 Uncircumscribed, Omnipotential, Just, 
 
 Only-consistent, True, and Reigning God, 
 
 That great suspense resolves : heaven, though prepared, 
 
 Sank in surprise to see ; the stars felt faint 
 
 Half falling ; the embodied round of heaven 
 
 Ravish'd with rapture to a tremour turn'd 
 
 At that unveiling joy, that light, and love : 
 
 In crystal space, above the fields of light. 
 
 In aether that beyond all ether shone. 
 
 Where yet to kindling light no sun revolved. 
 
 Where nothing overlaid, in heavenly space 
 
 Vacant to all but God, Jehovah shone 
 
 Revealing in beatitude His Son ! 
 
 His Son, begotten ere the heavens were born ; 
 
 Begotten made not ; in the Father's love 
 
 Co-equal with the Father, co-etern ; 
 
 The Godlike image of His love to heaven. 
 
 And ! bless'd image of God's love to us : 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 207 
 
 Calliope ! supported by thy train 
 Adoring, strike the golden Gordian chord 
 To the divinest notes with hallow'd hand 
 Unto the Lord of love ; in unity, 
 Co-ruling with the Father ; Prince of light, 
 And very God of everlasting God ; 
 The Lord of glory and the Prince of peace : 
 Piously bend the knee ; beatitude 
 In all our looks, extasy in our hearts, 
 Divinest notes of harmony for Him ! 
 
 " Go! " said the Word unto God's only Son, 
 Thus to the ravish'd heavens reveal' d, "my Son, 
 Before all worlds, imbosom'd our Delight ; 
 Thou God of God, and Light of Light, to Thee 
 The crowning honours of all time belong ! 
 Go where the ages roll in all their signs 
 Celestial ; and beyond those circles go. 
 Adding unto the empire most Divine : 
 Rebellious Pride leaving the field of war 
 A waste and desolation, thou, God, 
 Now in the fulness of our claim retake ! " 
 
 The Son makes filial answer, " Lo, I come 
 To do Thy work God, Thy will fulfil ; 
 With zeal I come, my Father and my Lord ! " 
 
 Then the empyreum brighten'd when the Lord 
 To His divine Similitude express'd 
 Ineffable delight and gave Him there 
 Commission to endow the outer heavens, 
 
268 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 As through them God should pass, with mental life ; 
 
 No angel life is like it, nor can man 
 
 Picture unto his mind the various forms 
 
 Of that existence which possesses suns 
 
 Beyond the telescopic eye of thought. 
 
 And what imagination ever reach'3 ; 
 
 In His bright car of state Messiah drives, 
 
 Majestic borne through the crystalline sky, 
 
 Riding in visible glory, passing on 
 
 Worshipp'd for ever as to them He rode ; 
 
 From the wide open doors of pearl He rides, 
 
 Beyond the battlemented heavens afar 
 
 Where, as satellar to the heavens, the suns. 
 
 Which heretofore in heaven like spangles shone. 
 
 Distended orbs of light revolved and shined : 
 
 Eye hath not seen, nor hath a mortal ear 
 
 Heard, it has enter'd to no mind of man 
 
 What a transcendant glory brightens heaven, 
 
 The habitation of perpetual light ; 
 
 No contiguity to such abode 
 
 Boasted the universe, beyond that heaven 
 
 Ordered by the reigning, sov'reign. Lord, 
 
 But all its order was His perfect work. 
 
 And, though but secondary, that transcends 
 
 Imagination : to the same degree 
 
 Excel the high intelligences made 
 
 There to the wonder of His angels by 
 
 The vital word of everlasting Love ; 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 269 
 
 Bless'd beings they were all; but let us come 
 Where God the Son reintegrates the spheres 
 Which man inhabits and the human kind : 
 Prone either side His holy angels fall 
 Fearful before the burning horrors which 
 Spit fire and frore against the universe 
 Which God the Father yesterday reframed : 
 Chaos confusion made that struck them dumb, 
 But still more dreadful in objective rage 
 Boil'd, what, beyond all the celestial suns, 
 Horrified wide and far recoiling space : 
 The heavens had been created, all those suns 
 Were ruled to order by one soVreign word 
 Of God the Lord Most High, but, ! what voice 
 Sufficed for the reduction of a mass 
 Like that ? so contrary, so opposite, 
 Stubborn, intracted, so awryly black : 
 But all things still are possible to the Power 
 Which, out of nothing this material whole, 
 The shining universe beyond, and all 
 The glories of super-celestial space. 
 In His omnipotence, design'd and made : 
 As the resistless day from heaven rush'd out 
 Over the yawning space, beyond that day 
 In brightness now proceeded forth, above 
 The oceans of confusion, One whose Name 
 Was to the heavens unknown before the Son- 
 Adopted call'd, Spirit of God, to Thee ! 
 
270 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 From the archangels hidden to that day, 
 
 A spacious vast which made our vast as nought, 
 
 Thence visibly wings out the Holy Ghost : 
 
 Those who His testimony have unto 
 
 Their assured spirits as the Sons of God, 
 
 May feel the speechless spreading of the wing 
 
 Of God the renovating Comforter : 
 
 The blunted principles of matter in 
 
 Their lawlessness came to an end at once 
 
 Before the operation of His power : 
 
 O'er all the billowy rage egestion came 
 
 To working silence, incubation brought 
 
 Those waters soon into the calm of rest 
 
 And a third universe inchoate wrought : 
 
 Thus the organic frame terrestrial grew ; 
 
 The fabric of our own terrestrial worlds 
 
 From the foundation gradually arose : 
 
 The active labour urged, God's angels saw 
 
 Admiring the similitude of what 
 
 Was primitive created ; in such change 
 
 As wonder adds to wonder and delight : 
 
 If an incalculable distance roll 
 
 Beyond the suns of light and seat of God, 
 
 And that incalculable distance shrink 
 
 To nothing when our distance from those suns 
 
 Is well consider' d, the gradation falls 
 
 In excellence no doubt, as cedar, shrub, 
 
 And humble grass do differ; but as man's 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 271 
 
 Botanic learning beauty finds in grass, 
 
 So the superior angels in these spheres 
 
 Terrestrial recognised the perfect work, 
 
 And praised the wondrous handicraft, of God : 
 
 The heavens were first ennobled, like the trees 
 
 Of Lebanon ; then came at distance meet 
 
 The varied exhibition of His power ; 
 
 Less grandeur stamp'd the suns than heighten'd heaven, 
 
 Proportion' d to th' inhabitants therein. 
 
 But those inhabitants those suns received 
 
 Gratefully to their knowledge, love, and praise ; 
 
 As gratefully the angels saw imprints 
 
 After another fashion made by Him 
 
 Whose lowest thought and work exceed all praise : 
 
 Thus orb on orb and star on star came out 
 Rejoicing from the wild, chaotic, rude. 
 Seemingly irreclaimable, black mass 
 Of matter left by Lucifer enraged : 
 Some were inspired to cold ; as those required 
 Whom the benignant goodness so design'd 
 That cold should bring them pleasure ; others rose 
 Heated to the requirements of a class 
 To which caloric was the pleasing sense ; 
 Others their medium found in tepid gleams. 
 Less vigorous but adapted to the life 
 Placed on their surface ; all were happy made. 
 
 Thus the triunal universe was framed ; 
 Where'er imagination roams, spread out 
 
272 THE CHEISTIAD. 
 
 A smiling happiness and fuU-cupp'd joy 
 In best variety : heaven's moments weigh' d 
 Herein as years, the just proportion yields 
 To man whereby the difference may be found 
 Betwixt terrestrial and celestial things ; 
 Thus what is brilliancy to us, were there 
 Scarcely a silver'd dawn unto the gods, 
 A shaded silver, chiUy cold to them 
 Except by variation for a time ; 
 Hence angel visits unto men are few 
 And transient, even though perennial spring, 
 Or a continual summer earth rejoiced : 
 Yet was the high redemption of our sphere 
 Worthy both harp and sackbut ; this was made, 
 Not for the angels but for beings placed 
 Below the first-born gods and demigods ; 
 Gods still in their degree, and in the sight 
 Of God entitled so much more to love 
 As ruth and pity to the youngest born 
 In all their fondness naturally come. 
 
 Most liberally bestow' d, up bud and flower 
 In infinite variety rejoiced 
 To beautify the rich created whole ; 
 Unviolated beauty from the hand 
 Of God the mantled verdure of His worlds 
 Endued, supreme floridity its own 
 And more than April colours of delight : 
 What spun to ruination out was thus 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 273 
 
 From the opprobrium of offence reolaim'd 
 
 To tlie relational regard of heaven ; 
 
 For out of heaven the Holy Spirit came, 
 
 Terrestrial infinitudes lit up, 
 
 Through all their spacious room a heaven for men ; 
 
 Heaven from the heavens came forth a lucent joy, 
 
 UnroU'd beyond all the subjected bounds 
 
 Of matt-er, even to unapparent space ; 
 
 The golden zones were set where they return, 
 
 Where Euclid could not reach, in central light, 
 
 A genial quickening circulating all : 
 
 Void shrank astonied back where hell was found, 
 
 And fired that hell unto conflagrant woe : 
 
 Then was the firmament which roofs all worlds 
 
 As if with heaven, stretch' d out in tented blue : 
 
 From the descriptive whole. Calliope, 
 
 Descend and tell when in his place our sun 
 
 Majestic wheel' d, his planets ranging round 
 
 Their seemly distances, with them fair earth : 
 
 Amidst the strings of this immortal lyre 
 
 A slender episodic string is found. 
 
 That silver string to fairest Earth belongs. 
 
 Touch that with gentle, with a tender hand : 
 
 Dear Earth my mother, and ye sprites of joy, 
 
 Spirits of the ethereal fields of air. 
 
 The green rejoicing valleys, mountains, waves ; 
 
 Ye Nereids whom so often by the shore 
 
 The jealous Moon surprised in love with me ; 
 
 T 
 
274 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 Nymphs of morn, noon, and eve, to whom our court 
 
 And piety were paid, return'd are we, 
 
 At last, from these sublimities of space 
 
 And awfi.ll presence of majestic Powers 
 
 Which all the heights of genius can command, 
 
 Beyond the pains of martyrdom oppress'd : 
 
 what a dear relief, let us confess 
 
 Your arms and looks unto these aching limbs 
 
 And eyes do minister ! An air so sharp. 
 
 So clear, so rarefied as the air 
 
 Of gods, we breathed laboriously, scarce 
 
 Keeping one's life in altitudes so high ; 
 
 The music of seraphic harps broke in 
 
 The tympal doors of both my ears, to storm 
 
 And overcome the soul with rapturous death ; 
 
 Such rapture overpower'd us to a wish 
 
 For the amenities of love with you ! 
 
 How could I bear celestial scenes without 
 
 A sense of fainting painful unto death ? 
 
 And, yet, no tinkling bell is our desire ; 
 
 But fair humanities relieve the strain 
 
 Of reverence enhanced to holy fear 
 
 And hallow'd horror : dearest mother Earth, 
 
 Thou shalt confess and shrieve thy son return'd 
 
 Who now this loving string will tune to thee ! 
 
 Whatever sceptics say, our earth in its 
 Beginning testified creative grace : 
 At God's compeUing voice, the waters move 
 
THE CHBISTIAD. 275 
 
 With a tumultuous pulse unto their place ; 
 
 Then Irom the ebbing deeps high mountains rose 
 
 And land appear'd ; emerald verdure grew, 
 
 Herb pleasant, and the fruit-tree good in kind : 
 
 When forth the sun, like a young bridegroom come 
 
 Out of his chamber, parted day from night, 
 
 The waters then ichthyous life brought forth, 
 
 And air prolific bred ; out fishes spring 
 
 Swarming innumerous, with spangled scale 
 
 Or lightsome shell endow'd as each became ; 
 
 Fowl fledged at once on high, pinion-poised, 
 
 Skimm'd swift the glacial breeze or soar'd to praise ; 
 
 Land animals succeed fishes and birds ; 
 
 Not those, of land or sea, which, reptile-made, 
 
 Carnivorous, Buckland unctuously took 
 
 To dull obtusity with such delight ; 
 
 Dull is the wisdom of the world to God, 
 
 And men shall know that all His works are made 
 
 Perfect when God visiteth with the rod 
 
 Of chastisement their intellectual pride : 
 
 But, oh, in judgment, we beseech Thee, Lord, 
 
 StiU to remember mercy ; what is man 
 
 That God should mark him ; what the human mind 
 
 That God its emptiness like chaff should thresh. 
 
 Thus was creation order' d, every sphere 
 Vibrating to the uplift lyres which toned 
 Creation with a universal joy : 
 Harmonies fiU'd the firmament to God, 
 T 2 
 
276 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Who said and it was done : all new-born things 
 Rapturously joining, yon resplendent orb 
 Melodious drove his shining wheels ; the sea 
 Reciprocates our sun in solemn base, 
 And all the elements expressive praise, 
 Each in its several way, creative love : 
 To the exuberant whole then Adam brought 
 The crowning tribute of a higher praise : 
 
 thou the last, and some insist, as last. 
 The best performance of the plastic hand 
 That made thee, after God's own image, Man j 
 The admiration of all angels, though 
 With difficulty, now, the clearest eyes 
 And purest minds of our degenerate race 
 Perceive an angel, how the angels sung 
 In the beginning, when the Son of God 
 This fair dominion enfeoff'd to man, 
 Adam the first and primest of the race : 
 On the enamell'd ground at once stood he 
 Godlike erect : not, as Arcadians tell. 
 Sprung from a mystic tree ; nor form'd with fire 
 By any Titan known to Cybele ; 
 Much less like hairy Orsus or an ape, 
 Which, shame !^ homologists have striven to show : 
 Hyperion, nor his son ; nor Myrrha's son, 
 Adonis ; nor the son of Peleus, kUl'd 
 By Paris ; nor Hephsestion, were so fair : 
 Nireus, loveliest of the Grecians, were 
 
THE OHRISTIAD. 277' 
 
 Not comparable to him : the heavens look'd down 
 Moveless with joy to see ; the world, spell-bound, 
 Acknowledged Adam for its master made : 
 
 Muse, if any words had power our words 
 Rejoiced mankind to hear, God's favourite born 
 Into the early earth with fragrance fill'd 
 From all the treasures of vernality : 
 No cruel winter then lock'd nature up ; 
 No summer scorch'd to drought the guiltless earth ; 
 All hours were genial as the hours on high : 
 Then to the argent arms of Evening came 
 The sun incrimson'd ; then the Moon reposed 
 The ruler of a spring which never fail'd 
 But only droop'd in her nocturnal charms : 
 This was Elysium ; to the choral voice 
 Of joyful angels consecrated high : 
 And this was our forefather ; made the type 
 Of God to all that in the world were placed 
 Incarnated as beasts, birds, or as fish ; 
 Wondrous are all the spirits found in them. 
 
 Ye nymphs of Solyma ! the Prince of peace. 
 Incarnate Love, inflesh'd Divinity, 
 To Him a higher flight of words belongs ; 
 Adam, the representative of God 
 On earth, whom Adonai created, sing 
 God-born into the undefiled world. 
 Which at his feet its horn of plenty shed,. 
 The Amalthean whole too scant for him { 
 
278 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 No Corybantes nor Curetes there 
 
 With suckling goats are wanted ; Morning tends 
 
 His thoughts ; his wishes are anticipated 
 
 By all the creatures of his loving sway : 
 
 The wilderness was glad ; the desert smiled 
 
 And blossom'd as the rose ; for earth required 
 
 What Adam brought, and all imperfect felt 
 
 Till, as the apex to a pyramid. 
 
 Or as the statue which a column waits, 
 
 Man crown'd the work graduated to him : 
 
 Ineffably, creation Adam saw ; 
 
 The holy angels tune a psalm to see 
 
 The bless' d invention of the God of Love, 
 
 Between the lines of good and evil placed : 
 
 " all ye Powers of the Lord" they sung, 
 "Ye Heavens, Sun, Moon, and Stars; Day, and the Night; 
 Dews, Showers, and Winds of God ; Waters, and Wells ; 
 Floods, Rivers, Oceans ; Earth, and all that dwell 
 In water, and in air; Jehovah praise !" 
 Then the archangels harping, " All the earth 
 Doth worship Thee, Father : unto Thee 
 The Angels sing aloud ; the heavens and all 
 The Powers therein : cherubim to Thee 
 And seraphim continually cry, 
 ' Holy Lord God of Sabaoth !' Heaven and earth 
 Thy majesty and glory overfill : 
 Thou art the King of glory, Christ ; the Son 
 Of the Eternal Father ; infinite 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 279 
 
 Thy majesty, at the right hand of God 
 Sitting, we Thee acknowledge : also, Thou, 
 Holy Ghost the Comforter : this day 
 We magnify, we worship, we adore. 
 The Father, Son, and God the Holy Ghost." 
 
 Inscribe gold-wrought the words which angels tune ; 
 Upon the tablets of the heart inscribe 
 With sacred diamonds the archangels' hymn ; 
 Well hath the heavenly Spouse preserved to us 
 Their grand, augustest, hymn to God address'd : 
 The forests then broke forth; the mountains moved; 
 The fir, pine, box, more beautifully grew ; 
 The drooping lUies lift the gladden'd head ; 
 Reeds and buUrushes from their springs look up ; 
 Their bridal bloom of beauty myrtles took ; 
 Orange and lime trees blossom'd whiter when 
 A heavenly brightness from the Son adored 
 To Adam, on his knee of worship, came ; 
 All flying birds in air, fish in the wave, 
 And cattle on the green, expressly spoke 
 Out from their soid of elevating love. 
 The radiancy of gladness made brimful. 
 
 Six days, as days are reckon' d in our world 
 But to the angels nothing like an hour, 
 All this creation cost : learned in all 
 The learning of the old Egyptian line, 
 The son of Amram, by divine command, 
 Warranteth this to us : our task is all 
 
280 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Too arduously solemn, or the fact 
 
 Were logically proved : successive life 
 
 In the Mosaic order of the world 
 
 Fossilized, sceptics should consider that 
 
 Initial verity genesial strong : 
 
 The inner method of God's work no man 
 
 By searching can find out ; some dream that life 
 
 Could only upon life itself subsist. 
 
 If so this earth were an Aceldama 
 
 With the first dawn creative open'd up ; 
 
 Not here to fight with shadows, we avow 
 
 Our sternest unbelief in that false view : 
 
 But Philosophy of nature, though 
 
 Useful when understood, no more delay 
 
 From thee our high and lofty subject brooks, 
 
 Proceed then Muse, proceed ! when God retum'd 
 
 With all His angels where supernal light 
 
 Gloried to receive the fulgent train : 
 
 Heaven, too long deserted, pour'd the wine. 
 
 Brimming all golden chalices for a feast 
 
 On gold and citron tables choicely spread : 
 
 Wine of no Formian vintage was prepared. 
 
 Richer than the Falernian, Chian, wine, 
 
 Or wine of Tenedos ; and for this feast. 
 
 Feast metropolitan, desserts were cuU'd ' 
 
 That the Tartarian emperor's had disgraced ; 
 
 From off the trees of life plenteous were pluck' d 
 
 The various fruits which bless'd immortals treat, 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 281 
 
 Great pomeloes, pomegranates, rubied pines, 
 Like Ceres', diamonded, more luscious than 
 The lotos famous in the tale of Troy ; 
 Dates finer than the dates of Taffilat, 
 Grapes that the Sogdian valley could not grow, 
 No, nor the Promised Land, were mix'd with figs 
 That Cato's shamed though Carthaginian grown ; 
 Sweet Lycabessian olives whence they press 
 Palladian oil were wild to those which tempt 
 The palate there with a Hymettian scent j 
 Rich vegetable cups of pearl o'erfiU'd 
 With manna add to these ; guavas, quince 
 Lavender' d, jellies, semilucent creams, 
 Syrops gold-tinctured, delicacies spiced 
 Daintily from strange kernels, possets rich 
 To plenitude, and others were prepared : 
 Served well were they ; the servitors more fleet 
 Than Atalanta or Dyname fair, 
 Astyoche heavenly fair, Pasithae, 
 Or Syrinx the delight of shepherd swains ; 
 The daughters of queen Niobe, preferr'd 
 Before Diana, were less fair than they : 
 Callianassa, Thalia, Apseudes, 
 Limnoria, Amphinome, Amaltheia, 
 And others, so to call celestial sprites. 
 Brought the choice oceanic fruits in cups. 
 So prodigal of calcedonian bloom 
 That all the angels marvel such to see ; 
 
282 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 Their amber, flaxen, black, or raven hair 
 
 Was wreathed with chaplets made by vestal hands 
 
 That left no finger-mark on any rose, 
 
 Tulip, or wood anemone twined there : 
 
 The Cytherean feasts, by April moons 
 
 Held in Achaia name not, for the gods 
 
 Banquet becomingly on such viands as 
 
 The woods and plains, rivers and seas of heaven. 
 
 Produced, excelling every earthly kind ; 
 
 Not that in heaven woods, plains, rivers, and seas, 
 
 Are actually found, but terms like these 
 
 Stand analogically right to man 
 
 For what were otherwise descriptionless ; 
 
 So also of the fruits and dishes, named 
 
 For the adornment of a meagre page ; 
 
 And, truly, angels hunger, for our Lord 
 
 Spoke of the bread and wine that God reserved 
 
 Unto His saints when they to glory come ; 
 
 May we unto the supper of the Lamb 
 
 With all Thy saints and angels. Lord ! be call'd : 
 
 Honied conserves of the most melting kind. 
 Crystallised lozenges like diamonds, cates 
 More balmy than the Idumean balms. 
 More odoriferous, in salver'd gold 
 Whity opals and onyxes were served 
 From sideboards that might groan though massive made j 
 All Elf-land, the Hesperides, and all 
 The Maenads as from nut-brown Indian vales, 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 283 
 
 Janassa, Spio of the silver grot, 
 Orytliea, Agave, Ampithoe, 
 Cater'd and dress'd them as became the place : 
 Desire wants nothing, instant on desire 
 Waited the more than lightning-footed maids; 
 Anticipation every wish forestalls 
 So featly, hghtly, that no floor-strewn flower 
 The shadow of a bruise from them received ; 
 Only, when touch'd the heliotropes gave out 
 Fresh perfume to their feet ; the concert then 
 Swell' d higher on the ear but softer to 
 The heavenly hearts it thriU'd to ecstacy : 
 
 Music, thou holy voice of love divine ! 
 Thine is the privilege to come and go 
 Into the court of the Eternal King : 
 To thee He graciously the ear inclines 
 Delighting in thy melody of soid ; 
 The spouse of Christ from thee her lesson takes 
 Preparatory to that marriage time 
 When consummation of all hope shall come, 
 Out from this wilderness the Church snatch'd up 
 Into the heaven of our Redeemer's arms : 
 When I my Lord and Master dear would see, 
 Cecilia is invoked ; her organ breathes, 
 It swells, it rises : anthem' d music comes, 
 Rapt all our powers, and brings us to the height 
 Of beatific joy, celestial love. 
 And everlasting certainty of life : 
 
284 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 The winds of heaven were husfd to hear thee then, 
 
 Dear Music ! all the over-ravish'd heavens 
 
 Choral with every instrument of choice ; 
 
 The sea of sound deepening to utter bliss : 
 
 Into the soul, as light into a sea, 
 
 Windless and waveless with delight, it sunk; 
 
 Or like the breath of God into the heart 
 
 Of Adam when a hving soul he rose. 
 
 The paradise of Eden flowering round : 
 
 What psalt'ries there were touch'd, what citterns tuned, 
 
 What timbrels struck, pipes blown, and viols used. 
 
 What tabors sounded, and what hands were bless' d 
 
 To carry sweetest virginals of sound. 
 
 Music alone may guess, the sirens shamed ; 
 
 Orpheus to that but screeching discord made ; 
 
 The son of vain Antiope was taught 
 
 By Hermes discord if to that compared ; 
 
 A false enchantment on the dolphins seized. 
 
 And on the stones of which Euterpe tells. 
 
 Thus all the angels in the heavens; the angels, 
 If by that name divine our Muse may still 
 The fallen spirits designate, the time 
 Employ in other manner : peace, nor rest 
 Being possible to Lucifer, with the thought, 
 Almost ubiquitous, of gods he comes 
 Within the bound of these terestrial worlds 
 To criticise and scorn the whole as small ; 
 Though relatively in proportion good. 
 
THE CHBISTIAD. 285 
 
 And excellent beyond attempt to him : 
 
 But what he could not better might be marr'd ; 
 
 And the discovery his mind elates, 
 
 Plushes his sallow ghostliness of cheek, 
 
 Heightens his shadowy crest, and nerves the step 
 
 That phantoms will betray although the dark 
 
 Shadow in which they walk be indistinct : 
 
 Adam he saw ; within that garden placed 
 
 Whose trees, shrubs, herbs, instinctively he knew 
 
 Better than knew the Swede whose genius gain'd 
 
 For the Linnaean name no lower niche 
 
 In the high pantheon to science raised ; 
 
 These studious occupation found for him, 
 
 Botanically curious beyond 
 
 Mere form and outline to a finer pitch 
 
 Organic, where the spiritual shone 
 
 Instructive wisdom and deific grace : 
 
 Such as he saw within the mirror'd streams 
 
 That kiss'd his image, and with fishes, beasts. 
 
 To Adam were intuitively made known : 
 
 Such was his gift of knowledge : learn' d Buffon 
 
 And our recondite Owen only catch 
 
 The glimpse of nature; nature him caress'd : 
 
 From their dissections all aghast she flies ; 
 
 As she, before them, fled the Stagyrite : 
 
 The simple problem of a wave to him 
 
 Insoluble, Euripus had the corpse 
 
 Of baffled Aristotle : thus the mind 
 
286 THE CHHISTIAD. 
 
 Bears fruit to death since our forefather lost 
 The inspiration of man's primal state. 
 
 who, with such an understanding as 
 Made Locke's a foolishness could error take 
 For anything but evil, and eschew 
 Good ? the prime principle on which he stood : 
 Who call'd the stars by name, and understood 
 Better than Kepler or Galileo all 
 Their courses, thus a Cretan liar proved 
 Unto himself, as the Arch-anarch had : 
 For God a helpmate giving unto man, 
 So great an influence o'er his heart gain'd she 
 That what Eve might affect Adam preferr'd, 
 Even though it were evil, as his good : 
 Herein is mystery : Was Adam then 
 Form'd to submit to femininity 
 Of mind ? inferior, both in thought and act : 
 Or was there in his constitution found 
 One point so rotten that an absurd straw 
 Easily pierced him to the inmost heart ? 
 Or was indeed the man by fate reduced 
 To the deplorable condition where 
 The angels find him in this lower world ? 
 Transparently absurd, embruted, vile : 
 
 All things in heaven, in earth, and hell, are by 
 Divine permission ; and as Adam fell 
 From innocency, in the great decrees 
 Of Sov'reign Wisdom Adam's fall was known ; 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 287 
 
 And, known, provided for : but who dare God 
 
 Arraign as causing such a dire event ; 
 
 Predestinating misery to man ; 
 
 Author of anguish unto all who breathe 
 
 This air diurnal ? Them, Lord, forgive, 
 
 Phrenetic madness irresponsible ; 
 
 And fools to madness go at what they see 
 
 Suffering, and understand not : thou, God 
 
 Art always placable ; by no design 
 
 Of everlasting Goodness evil reign'd ; 
 
 Nor was the image of his Maker made 
 
 In any part defenceless to the Power 
 
 That sway'd our destiny to sin and death : 
 
 If then this work and aim of God were framed 
 And bent to happiness ; in knowledge found 
 Most excellent ; inclined alway to God ; 
 Again, why did our hapless father turn 
 From God his step away, wandering wide 
 From the straight road of everlasting life 
 Into destruction horrid ? Was fair Eve, 
 Our amiable mother Eve the cause 
 Of an infatuation so supreme 
 That wonder evermore on wonder waits 
 To horror when of that dread lapse we think ? 
 woman, how unjustly thou 'rt defamed ; 
 On Adam, Eve at her creation look'd 
 As looks Eunome in the early spring 
 Dropping sweet buds upon Vertumnus while 
 
288 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 The object of her passion lies asleep 
 
 In all the roseate bloom of youthfulness ; 
 
 As first, so last our mother look'd and loved. 
 
 More beauteous still was Eve in the degree 
 Of beauty ; and as Aphrodite rising 
 Out of the sea naked in all her charms, 
 Wanted no bracelet from Eriphile, 
 Nor that which Phidias to Minerva gave. 
 So Adam our most lovely mother saw, 
 WakLag to fascinated ecstacy : 
 " beautiful ! " cried he, " Beautiful Eve ! " 
 With that her glossy ringlets he put back 
 Over her ivory shoulders, in his arms 
 With tenderness raising her gently up, 
 Imprinting on her forehead many a kiss 
 Of rapturous love, pressing her damask cheeks. 
 Sustaining all her person in his arms : 
 Upon him falls her balmy breath, her heart 
 Swimming in fond desire ; and, her speech 
 For trilling melody persuasive soft ! 
 " Adam ! " she answer' d, echoing back the voice 
 Of his own soul to ravishment again : 
 
 Such was their happiness ; but, like one's shade 
 Which hovers in the sunlight, it may be 
 Only imagined, never well described ; 
 No more than verse can paint the gorgeous clouds 
 Which curtain in over the glassy sea 
 Much loving Alia and the Light of Day. 
 
THE CHRI9TIAD. 289 
 
 Flower of flowers, the first outcome which God 
 Hath made so choicely perfect, Eve, no blame 
 Shall from our lip of praise and tongue of flame, 
 Seraphic-touch'd, attaint or libel thee ! 
 If the crude pagans made their goddesses 
 Envy Pandora's gifts and graces, 
 Forbid that those to whom salvation comes 
 Forth of, my mother, thy immaculate seed, 
 Shall aught but duteous love return to thee ! 
 Love was in all thy looks and motions wrought 
 Beyond perfection : save but one only, 
 None of Eve's daughters equal rose to Eve : 
 Acrisius, King of Argos, boasted vain : 
 Europa, Alcumena, vail'd to Eve ! 
 
 Fair Hippolyta's thick gold-molten hair. 
 And what Apelles to his mistress gave, 
 The Cyprian Venus' and Actea's locks, 
 Nor those of Cleopatra shone like hers : 
 The last of all the Ptolemies denied 
 Superiority, but Euphrosyne 
 With frank Aglaia confess their own 
 Outdone, and they excel th' Egyptian queen : 
 Eurynome with equal envy fiU'd 
 Deny it dares not ; though she will not own 
 Excellence anywhere but in herself : 
 Earth in Eve's eyes the joyous promise read 
 Of future generations born to light ; 
 The golden cloud uncounted drops contains 
 
290 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 Unto the thirsting earth, and they shall fall 
 
 Into her fruitful lap, flower-fuU to rain : 
 
 As too in heaven, so likewise was the earth 
 
 Crowded with shining Spirits, soft Desires 
 
 And Adorations, that incarnate went 
 
 Forth of our general parents' mind and heart 
 
 Fulfilling their behests ; all these would crowd 
 
 Around the imaged Earth, her snowy arms 
 
 And hands across the heaving bosom placed. 
 
 Admiring Eve to consecrated love : 
 
 Wand'ring the warbled woods, or where gay flowers, 
 
 In bush and brake, or o'er the velvet turf, 
 
 Invitingly upon each other crowd, 
 
 The livelong day they went unweeting time ; 
 
 When Delia from the zenith daylight closed 
 
 And all the evening shades rest prompted, then 
 
 " Come gentle Eve !" cried Adam, "come, my love, 
 
 Into the nuptial bower, and sleep with me ; 
 
 Fairest and all-beloved one, come with me !" 
 
 Thus, nightly they, enamour'd pair, retired ; 
 Better than wine their love, than ointment pour'd 
 Out on the head of joy, than light to life ; 
 For life in the infinity of light 
 May be a desolation ; joy may change. 
 All joy will end that is not loving joy : 
 The heart of man with wine is highly cheer' d. 
 But fumes from love proceed not ; love endures 
 Ever and ever ; love all things survives. 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 291 
 
 Moon, sun, the stars, eternity its own. 
 Secure against all change of time and tide : 
 
 Hate, the antipodes of loye, also 
 Endureth stedfastly ; or, still, our sphere 
 Terrestrial kept its aspect right unto 
 The gate of Judah, in the walls of heaven 
 From the beginning of the heavens framed high : 
 In true relation to the futm-e, God 
 The whole terrestrial system pointed to 
 That gate which His foreknowledge so design'd ; 
 And thitherward unto this day it looks, 
 But all our axled skies awry were tum'd 
 By the fell Anarch on that noted day : 
 While heavendom, in itself emhosom'd, kept 
 Sabbatic joy, that dread unquiet king. 
 Observed by God but unopposed, attempts 
 This our own native sphere : with higher mind 
 Than yet possess'd him, to our worlds came he, 
 Unwearied in his object as in hope, 
 Bent on the purpose which he first design'd 
 By an effectuation all his own. 
 Impossible to any lesser pride : 
 Such daring as was this consists with shame ; 
 Shame equalling its height, or the Archprince 
 Disdain'd the palt'ring arts which Uriel scom'd, 
 And some, the lowest, of his followers spurn'd : 
 Thus may ambition stoop where slaves recoil, 
 Insulted in their thought by depths so base ; 
 u 2 
 
292 THE CHHISTIAD. 
 
 Yet, what passing triumph he achieved 
 If God were put aside, foil'd, frustrated ! 
 That justified whatever means were taken ; 
 And all are lawful where no law is own'd, 
 Only the promptings of infernal pride : 
 Since too the height of heaven was far beyond 
 His present reach, and all the angels laugh' d 
 At his worst menace, if the outside thread 
 Of God's unsentried empire in were burst. 
 The damage fell on God ; its gain, if gain 
 Therefrom to daring might accrue, was his : 
 The obvious consequences as to his 
 Discomfited battallions also came 
 Within the calculation ; such a breach 
 In the creation, unexpected by 
 The gods, their soul would reinstate to hope. 
 And prompt submission, Lucifer, to thee ! 
 They were a disappointment unto him ; 
 And light weigh'd then in his esteem the worth 
 Of aU whom the incensed heavens proscribed, 
 But kingly pomp was something ; regal sway 
 Seems natural to him and necessary : 
 
 Beyond our sun, the nearest sun to him, 
 Sirius, upon his burning wheel rolls round ; 
 Phosphor beyond him reigns; and far beyond 
 Phosphor revolve other enlarging orbs 
 Satellar to the further central light : 
 That central light, the basis of their own , 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 293 
 
 The fountain whence their fires are all renew' d, 
 
 Receives, in turn, like them, his ocean'd shine 
 
 From a remoter distance of the space : 
 
 In that far distant space the sun, to them 
 
 A ruler, in his turn like them becomes 
 
 Subsidiary to a larger orb ; 
 
 And he in like attendance next is found, 
 
 'TUl suns on suns our verses overcrowd 
 
 Beyond numeric reach of tongue and thought : 
 
 Still beyond them shines Canis, Sacrael rules. 
 
 That bright circumference ; in the Balance reigns. 
 
 Gabriel, not Venus as the flamens taught, 
 
 Who falsely said that Mars the Scorpion had, 
 
 The Archer, Jove : the five archangels had 
 
 Each a bright government to him assign'd,. 
 
 Zodiacal, beyond where Leo posts 
 
 Our culminating sun, to Mazzaroth 
 
 Arcturus and the seven refulgent stars, 
 
 Orion burning to the pitch of praise : 
 
 On they all roU, the whole ; within themselves 
 
 Revolvant ; subject to a final orb : 
 
 Up into that Lucifer fearless mounts 
 
 With an unconquerable and burning pride : 
 
 'Twere long to tell, even if the tale could be 
 Herein related, how that orb he ranged 
 With rage uncheck'd ; essaying what might be- 
 Essay'd against the government of God . 
 Upon the mind which there, as Adam ruled 
 
294 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 This earth, though m superior fashion, lived : 
 
 Such prey to an Archprincedom fall'n might seem 
 
 Better proportion'd than our Adam was ; 
 
 Both fell into the ravening lion's jaws : 
 
 For with an open argument attacking 
 
 The glorious object of revengeful spite, 
 
 He, confident in truth, and o'er-intent 
 
 To demonstrate his contestative strength. 
 
 Into the meshes of confusion fell : 
 
 Not such poor questions as distract mankind 
 
 Upon our little globe, propounded there 
 
 Within the focus of the tertial light 
 
 The arch-adventurer ; there knowledge shone 
 
 Too fulgent for the small deceits which snare 
 
 Our simple tribe, removed so far from the 
 
 High governmental court of this our sphere ; 
 
 There, in his pride of place the man was struck, 
 
 Potential struck ; o'er-dazzled aU the eyes 
 
 Of a too self-sufficient wisdom ; proud 
 
 As Lucifer was proud in its conceit : 
 
 To flattery he fell, when other arts 
 
 Proved insufficient for its pride ; clear-eyed 
 
 To all but the sophistic art pride owns : 
 
 Such flattery took Eve ; in other terms, 
 
 Lower'd to Eve's simplicity, the Power 
 
 Of darkness also with fair Eve prevail'd, 
 
 But it was flattery all : Adam had been 
 
 Forbidden to indulge a fruit that grew 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 295 
 
 Hard by the admirable tree of life : 
 
 Small was the prohibition unto him 
 
 Where all fruit so abounded that the day 
 
 Was distant ere a moiety of the whole 
 
 Cotdd be enjoy'd, were his a greedy haste : 
 
 But Eve one night, by way of dream receives 
 
 Intelligence that the forbidden thing 
 
 Was barr'd from Adam only, not from her : 
 
 As Eve in Adam lived, what was not fit 
 
 For him, by parity of reason stood 
 
 Equal unfit for her ; so she supposed, 
 
 Acknowledging a fealty due from her, 
 
 Equivalent in all submissive worth 
 
 Unto the fealty ofier'd up by Adam 
 
 To God the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth : 
 
 " Fairer than angels !" our forefather cried 
 
 When this she told him, " from my side and heart 
 
 God form'd thee woman ; we are only one, 
 
 And thou art bound with me to honour God." 
 
 That the Creator was to be adored 
 Eve knew ; but yet such love as Adam brought 
 Unto his blessed Maker Eve knew not, 
 " Dear spouse !" cried she, "thou art my cause and end; 
 I cannot realize beyond thee aught 
 To love so tenderly, but grateful thank 
 God take that I to Adam am alive ; 
 Impulsive bliss is mine to think of thee !" 
 The rose of Sharon blush' d as up she rose 
 
296 
 
 THE CHKISTIAD. 
 
 Off from the knee of worshipping love to kiss 
 His cheeks, his lips ; his flesh and bone were hers ! 
 Beat faster then man's heart ; his looks dissolve 
 To all the dear liquidities of love 
 And mutual satisfaction in reply : 
 
 "Eve thou art my companion" Adam cried, 
 " My passion ; thus unto my heart, mind, soul, 
 Closer I clasp thee ; but to Him who made 
 One for the other, both unto the Lord, 
 Love, praise, obedience, certainly is due : 
 What God commands ready submission claims 
 From our intelligence ; for shall not God 
 Order His angels and all creatures rule 
 According to the pleasure of His will ? 
 Amongst the armies of the heaven rules God ; 
 Should it not be our highest honour thought 
 That sovereign Goodness to this state descends 
 From us to take such tribute as is thus 
 Easily placed within our hand to give 
 Submissively the Majesty of worlds ? 
 Had we been placed within this pleasant round 
 Of arborescence with no given law. 
 Only the natural, that argued God 
 Good but stUl arbitrary, us His slaves ; 
 For then no choice of will to man pertain'd ; 
 Man lived but as a necessary slave." 
 
 He said, unweeting in the innocence 
 Of knowledge that the argument was framed 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 297 
 
 Irreverently in word tiiougli true in fact : 
 
 Verily, knowledge, if in Adam when 
 
 So perfect it thus trespass' d, is indeed 
 
 Imminent danger : well the Anarch knew 
 
 How dangerous was knowledge, since it cost. 
 
 Yes, knowledge cost, him eminence on high. 
 
 Above all angels ; for conceiving pride 
 
 Out of his great estate, from heaven he fell 
 
 The son of morning, which is knowledge call'd : 
 
 What morning thus in evil guise may mean 
 
 Is known only to Him who good will bring 
 
 Even from evil ; as pure light was brought 
 
 By the omnipotential command 
 
 From the contemporaneous darkness out : 
 
 But Lucifer persists in war ; a war 
 
 So much the more effective carried on 
 
 Secretly hostile ; undermining; dark ; 
 
 Latent the deadly power with which he wrought : 
 
 Not that but high Omniscience from His throne 
 
 Openly saw the thoughts of darkness brought 
 
 To operation by the artful force 
 
 And machinations of the foe ; but God 
 
 Ordain' d free-will to all created minds; 
 
 Both to the angels serving round His throne 
 
 In heaven, and unto the terrestrial race : 
 
 By strong analogy also, if angels 
 
 Fell from their first estate, then, too, might fall 
 
 The new creation ; so, alas, it proved ; 
 
298 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Nor let us seek to vindicate the fact, 
 That shaJl be justified at the proper time : 
 Worse still it were in us, what some will do. 
 The fact to question ; as if evil were 
 Doubtful ; so taught the Stoics : dying men 
 Sometimes wUl desperately death deny ; 
 But nothing frays the monster from his prey, 
 Nor any mitigation comes to man 
 From firantical denials so absurd ; 
 Repudiating madness suffers still : 
 
 In heaven the manner of seduction was. 
 Before all angels, open ; in the sight 
 Of all the angels Lucifer display'd 
 His most rebellious treason 'gainst the Lord ; 
 Dethronement was by him boldly proposed : 
 No penalty had God pronounced to them ; 
 In their superiority of mind 
 The angels were supposed above all threat, 
 Or admonition from the reigning Power : 
 Beyond their choice He reign'd ; 'twas theirs to rise 
 Against God's government ; they should abide 
 What consequences revolution bred : 
 Thus from the first, the angels fall'n God left 
 Unto themselves ; their punishment arose 
 From no sov'reign decree : if panic seized 
 The angels in the heavens, their panic rose 
 Out of their own bad mind by chaos left 
 In d, distracted state ; the foulest rout 
 
THE CHHJSTIAD. 299 
 
 Visited on them by embattled gods 
 Came from their chosen weapons; these alone 
 Had God permitted to His angels, though 
 Their armies carried in their just defence 
 Both shield and sword ; helmet they also wore 
 Defensive ; shall not God His hosts protect ! 
 
 Thus 'twas with man on earth in time as with 
 Angeldom in eternity ; but when 
 Man lapsed, forgiving God in mercy raised 
 A tower where man in his distress could flee : 
 Lapsing from weakness not from pride, God would 
 Not altogether cast mankind away ; 
 But, still, the armature of virtue left 
 Within the reach of all ; the blessed door 
 Of Mercy open left unto our need : 
 Angels could keep their good estate, if man 
 Prom that condition fell the judgment came 
 Equally imto man with them ; he must 
 All the terrific consequence endure ; 
 But mercy in the judgment came to man. 
 Differing from the angels in his fall ; 
 No pride of his attainted God Most High 
 As theirs attainted ; nay, his falling, though 
 Deplorable, may be somewhat excused ; 
 It is excused by everlasting Love : 
 For when the quick infection of mistake 
 Ran through the universe, from that fond thought 
 Which fell before the Luciferian art 
 
300 THE CHRI8TIAD. 
 
 In the bright person who possess'd the sun 
 Of kingly glory, bold success inspired 
 The Anarch so, that thence, through orb to orb, 
 He propagates contagion till, this world 
 Reaching, poor Eve was tempted to the fruit : 
 Pride also prompted Eve, but not the pride 
 Which heaven depopulated ; pride began. 
 First, as opposed to the Almighty Lord, 
 Can those who rise against His throne return ? 
 AU inconceivable such pride to us 
 Eternally remain ! it argues such 
 Exceeding madness that archangels dare 
 Hardly thereon to speculate for fear : 
 That pride bore early ashes to the mind 
 Which first so misconceived it ; when a mob 
 Of the inferior angels so abused 
 Their fallen Princedom : but what compromised 
 Humanity to our cost, no thought of God 
 Involved to wickedness : each angel prides 
 Himself in all the excellence that is his. 
 And man so prided his unquestion'd right; 
 There had he stopp'd as holy angels stop, 
 Aware that One transcends them till such worth 
 As they may boast of vanity becomes, 
 A shadow, nothing, unto God's compared. 
 Humility, the shadow of right pride, 
 Cover'd him with the wing from all its heat : 
 Excited made, forgetting God where He 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 301 
 
 Was studiously left out, to anger wrought 
 
 By Lucifer designedly, then, in 
 
 Its royal person, our Humanity, 
 
 Exaggerated, stunn'd, and stupified 
 
 Excessively, to the Deceiver fell : 
 
 Momentous was the issue unto him ; 
 
 To man calamitous beyond all time 
 
 Into eternity : but Sov'reign Power 
 
 Which left the fallen angels where they fell. 
 
 Pitied mankind as in our blood we lay : 
 
 For now revenge and hate the woman seek 
 
 When she between the stately trees of life 
 
 And knowledge idled : those who brought their dreams 
 
 To old Tiresias or the Pythoness, 
 
 Were not more curious than the woman when 
 
 There she reflected on her dream ; unsought 
 
 In its intelligence and point to her : 
 
 What made Eve dream like that ? Who could suggest 
 
 That Eve a privilege possess'd beyond 
 
 The right and title of her lordly spouse ? 
 
 There was the Tree of Knowledge, which, if he 
 
 Gather' d, death follows ; What means then the fruit 
 
 Which weighs its leafy branches to the ground, 
 
 Glistening unto every sense Eve had ! 
 
 No warning sent to her by God, except 
 
 The speculative speech of Adam, Was 
 
 That to be reckon'd as a voice divine ? 
 
 Undoubtedly to her Adam seem'd God j 
 
302 THE CHKISTIAD. 
 
 And all his wishes were her chosen laws 
 Of love : but if to him her wish were known, 
 Could Adam one small wish of hers resist ? — 
 There was the test of love ! She loved enough 
 To gratify whatever he desired ; 
 But Eve desires, yes, in all the grace 
 Of happy xmreflection, wantonness 
 Of happiness, desires what thus might prove 
 Entirety of affection in her lord : 
 Adam was all her thought, so Eve infringed 
 His duty and her own fondly to prove 
 What yet was never subjected to doubt : 
 Egregious folly ! — ^Was it more than that ? 
 And shall our general mother be abused, 
 Who bore us with such pains, nursing us in 
 Her tender arms, suckling us with her milk : 
 
 The fruit with more intention is survey' d : 
 Her eyes are captivated by the rind 
 Streakedly shining : nearer Eve approach'd 
 The ready tree, which musky fragrance yields 
 To an expectant smell : that fruit she touch' d; 
 Unto the feeling smoothly 'tis approved : 
 Delicious it appears : her senses warm 
 Towards it : she desires : 'tis pluckt; the taste 
 Melts grateful in her mouth till Eve is fiU'd 
 With a most strange delight unknown before : 
 
 Forth from a cypress avenue came he 
 Who to the woman's mind suggested these ; 
 
THE CHBI8TIAD. 303 
 
 So plausibly that Eve no woman were 
 Had the deception been at once detect : 
 Pitiless fiend ; but, still, seraphic he 
 Robed to our mother and, approaching, sued 
 In deferential grace to one so fair, 
 So beautiful exceeding, so divine : 
 Most ornate speech took he addressing her, 
 Wond'ring a tree so good was interdict ; 
 For if thereof Adam dared eat, godlike 
 He would become, equalling, almost, her ! 
 " Goddess ! " then her seducer gaily cried, 
 " Behold the worshipper of loveliness, 
 Surpassing worth, and excellence in thee ! 
 The high idolatry which I commit 
 Divinity excuses ; for thou art 
 Expressly made unquestionably divine : 
 see within the crystal waters here 
 The beauty of that face and then allow 
 The pridefiil homage which I bring to Eve ! " 
 With that beside a brook Credulity 
 Was seated at his side ; an angel there, 
 Alas a fallen angel, courting Eve. 
 
 What vain discourse they held, matters not here j 
 Save that soft Eve was fed upon such meats 
 As a young bird within a cage may have 
 Given to make her troll a vulgar tune. 
 Or pipe a bawdry song to him who took 
 The little prisoner from the callow nest : 
 
304 THE CHEISTIAD. 
 
 Worse than bloodshedder, thus the simple thing 
 So cruelly to take ! And yet the strain 
 He taug'ht was so unnatural, that oft 
 With trembling voice to him that victim turn'd 
 Feeling within her throat a swell to pain : 
 But no remorse, Ganilion, was to thee ; 
 No more than feels the ravening wolf fall'n on 
 An uncomplaining sheep ; or than a hound 
 Fleshing the virgin deer : from hell he came, 
 For this, express ; or anything that work'd 
 Avengement to his hate immortal ; God 
 Thought of not Eve, inconsequential wren : 
 Yet consequence was hers ; enough to bring 
 Down from aerial heights that soaring hawk 
 Which thought no height was all beyond his wing 
 Thus the enticer with a quivering dream 
 Beginning ; as the falcon first begins 
 His fluttering noise to make ; fix'd next an eye 
 On the unconscious object of desire. 
 And with a fascination all his own 
 Accomplish'd what was full of grief to heaven : 
 Even as the god who changed himself into 
 Bunch'd grapes his end to gain, Lucifer with 
 A sugar'd sophistry so plied poor Eve 
 That she to Adam's bower forthwith returns 
 Like a wing-hroken, ruffled, giddied, bird : 
 Thou merciless apostate, take my curse 
 And all the curses of our race deceived 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 305 
 
 Unto thee ; malice-bearer, they are thine ; 
 Thine ! Judas, the Iscariot of mankind : 
 Forgiveness may, still, possibly, be found 
 For that false judge who, to his venal end, 
 Wrong'd us to death ; the robber-priest may yet 
 Find place for some repentance ; but, thy guilt, 
 In geometric horror mutiplied 
 Beyond all quantity to Mercy known, 
 None ever pray'd for thee. Before the man 
 Kingly stood he ; all his original bright 
 Was tarnish'd greatly, but, as Jove appear'd 
 To Semele, our mother much admired 
 The solemn grandeur of his royal look ; 
 " And, ! " said she to Adam " didst thou know, 
 My gracious lord, and I could favour find. 
 And that indulgence which is Love's desire. 
 This wond'rous seraph of all knowledge now 
 To thee declared a lore wliich makes me vain : " 
 So said fond Eve, with blandishment of air 
 And gesture ; proof of that forbidden stuff 
 Which, shame and sorrow ! puff 'd her person up 
 To the struck observation of our sire : 
 
 So Hamlet, royal Dane ! once look'd as then. 
 Heart-stuck, looks Adam ; back from them he starts, 
 The dark conjunction bodeful to his heart, 
 Every word and look of Eve ten doubts : 
 Greatly introubled, from the spoiler he 
 Shrinks back still farther ; though our mother sought 
 
306 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 By every introductive means to bring 
 Them conversant together : Adam looks 
 Suspicious in his fear ; unknowing what 
 To think, but dreading more the more he looks 
 Intently at the Anarch and at Eve : 
 
 She, disappointed at the first approach 
 And piqued to find her preference denied 
 Obstinately ; alarm'd at all his looks 
 And startled by his action, hastens up 
 To Adam with alacrity of feet 
 Untried by her till now ; ungraceful seen : 
 Thus the vile serpent had degraded her 
 Unknowingly ; and Adam saw, with pangs 
 Added to all his pain, that beauty fails 
 From beauty, unconsidering soberness 
 And strict propriety of air and gait : 
 Astonishment increases till she comes 
 To such a challenge as recall'd the sense 
 Of Adam back, rooting him to the spot : 
 
 His expectation was not long in doubt ; 
 Briefly, as though she were offended. Eve 
 The anxious story told, his ears on fire : 
 But with that story came inducement ; such 
 As unto misery overgilds the pill : 
 The arch-dissembler frankly then address'd 
 Unheeding Adam ; surely what to Eve 
 Was pleasant, pleasant must be unto him ; 
 And well knew Eve, if modesty could vouch 
 
THE CHRI9TIAD. 307 
 
 His honourable word, that, now, if Adam 
 The fruit with her partook, thia spacious earth 
 Would from his loins such duplication have 
 As gods were disallow'd, his was such power ; 
 In him were all the root and seed of power, 
 Beyond the gi-eat ability of gods ; 
 And this would fructify in Eve till men 
 Were like the sands upon the ocean shore. 
 Countless beyond the shining stars on high ! 
 
 Delib'rately proposed, and true as cool 
 The grand inducement came ; yet on the mind 
 It fell unheeded ; as a flake of snow 
 May fall upon some heart frozen to death : 
 Adam's indeed was frozen ; all his soul 
 To full suspension went when Eve confess'd 
 Her fearful trespass : Could she do what he 
 Dared not once think of, with impunity ? 
 That was still possible ; but danger frown'd 
 Careful affection unto such suspense 
 For the beloved Eve that Adam shook 
 Tremblingly pitiable there to see : 
 
 " What hast thou done ! " at last cries he, sharp spoke; 
 In nervous agitation that would faint 
 But Eve embraced him ; " what hast thou done ! 
 Woe upon woe to us ! Who dare gainsay 
 The terms of our existence in this place? 
 That tree of knowledge is our certain death." 
 
 Again Eve kiss'd him, and again she kiss'd ; 
 x2 
 
308 THE CHKISTIAD. 
 
 That, but discomfort brought : then she produced, 
 In her distress, our mother was distress' d, 
 The taking arg^uraent which Selfishness 
 To selfishness produced : blush' d not the cheek 
 Which understood no shame ; although a sin 
 Had been committed : yet Eve's mind misgave 
 How ofispring sprung by human will to birth ; 
 Could they create ? Creation was the act 
 Omnipotential ; they were, then, like God ; 
 His prime of attributes was theirs ! Thus she 
 Eapidly reasoning, to Adam shows, 
 Again with iteration, all the gain 
 Which knowledge promised, whatsoe'er it cost. 
 When our first father could emerge from out 
 The depths of sorrow where Eve's fall had plunged 
 His sympathetic soul, and understood 
 Both her and her bewrayer thus so far. 
 Still more did he recoil ; dishonour God 
 In His commandment for the sake of gain ! 
 Was that proposed to manhood ? Who supposed 
 That he was capable of an action which 
 Such impudent ingratitude inferr'd 
 Unto the Lord who Eden fee'd to him? 
 On Lucifer he frowns with all the force 
 Of regal spirits when insulted past 
 Belief and past endurance : who the heavens 
 Disorganized, well understood that frown ; 
 Keener than any sword he felt it too, 
 
THE CHKISTIAD. 309 
 
 And pity then a cruel work had rued 
 
 If the arch-anarch's heart were not like stone : 
 
 That wound he bore unstagger'd ; well content 
 
 With the assurance that his work was done, 
 
 Though only half effectuated : before 
 
 The deep reproach of Adam he withdraws ; 
 
 His fermentation safely left to Eve, 
 
 Leaven' d, as she was leaven' d, to the core. 
 
 The sun climbs labouring up beclouded skies, 
 And lingers sorrowing to the close of day ; 
 The sadden'd moon blunted in horn appears. 
 Ashamed above the verge of night to rise ; 
 " Lift not thy looks on me," then Adam cried 
 To Eve, upon his neck, lamenting, hung ; 
 " We are undone, cozen'd by that grim Power 
 Denounced to us by angels : thou didst hear 
 How the deluded myriads of heaven 
 Pollow'd a mighty Princedom to disgrace 
 Into perdition ; conjuration his 
 Equal to the aspiring : we have seen 
 That treasonous being, and his malice now 
 Rankles within my heart, and thine will claim : 
 \ We are undone, undone for evermore." 
 
 Prone, with her hair dishevell'd, Eve fell down : 
 So fell the queen of old Boeotian Thebes 
 Changing when all her joys were slain, to stone : 
 But ! the tears our hapless mother shed ; 
 Phaethusa, or Lampethuse, such tears 
 
310 THE CHRI9TIAD. 
 
 Inconsolable wept not ; nor Serena 
 
 When, brave Sir Calepine away, she swoon'd : 
 
 At last, when speak Eve could, " Adam," cried she 
 " No ingrate thought to God possess'd my heart 
 Over the apple ; all His heavenly grace 
 Adoringly I own ; His every good 
 And perfect gift receiveth grateful thank 
 From me ; and all God's truth undoubted stands ; 
 My heart, my mind, and soul, to Him are true : 
 The height of this offence was to believe 
 That woman might attempt what man should not ; 
 Placing herself above man : but this fruit 
 Is so delicious, that I could refrain 
 No longer, when, supposing that it might 
 Afford some proof of thy dear love to me. 
 The delectation so o'erpower'd my mind 
 And longing senses, that I freely took ; 
 that my lord might also take as free : " 
 
 She said ; apologising rather than 
 Owning unto self-blame what he sorely 
 Regretted but condemn'd not : How could he, 
 This inconsiderated act condemn ? 
 Her motive was not vicious ; how could Eve, 
 That sweet perfection ! have one thought amiss 
 Before her senses were intoxicated 
 To the excess of pleasurable pain ? 
 But he who swerved not in his mind, laments 
 Her aberration unto foolishness ; 
 
THE CHBI9TIAD. 311 
 
 Not knowing then that God His angels charged 
 With folly, How much more would man be charged 
 By Him within whose sight the heavens were dark ? 
 Angel nor man is justified ; poor Eve 
 Justification pleaded by the love 
 Which Adam kindled on her altar'd heart : 
 To him was her desire even then ; as now 
 Woman looks up to man, longing for both 
 The capital and interest of love : 
 
 Thus to exaggeration virtue goes, 
 And worth will be officiously intense ; 
 Zeal, without knowledge burns ; and knowledge looks 
 Assurance-proud when it had better bend : 
 
 The woman in her love forgot the place 
 Appointed to her sex ; and, that forgetting. 
 So deeply wrong'd herself that it distress'd 
 The heart which was the apple of her eye : 
 Such salve she ofiers as the anguish best 
 Assuaged and master'd ; " See " cried she " in this 
 What an exceeding love to thee was mine : 
 This hand was lift only when I, of thee 
 Fondly considering, supposed the fruit 
 Might be design'd for us the test whereby. 
 Light of my life ! thy love could be approved : 
 If I our Author might ofiend in such 
 A very trifling matter, Adam, go 
 To Him with protestation that I meant 
 No tittle of transgression : is He deaf 
 
312 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 That God to us will not an ear incline ? 
 
 Or is God blind that this is yet unseen ? 
 
 If seen, I am unpunish'd : woe is me, 
 
 The punishment I suffer ; what said I ? 
 
 I know not what I say, for thou dost grieve, 
 
 Grieve me unto the heart, much injured lord. 
 
 Thus fallen from my unprotected side 
 
 To utter lamentation : I adored 
 
 My lover ; all too faithful unto Eve 
 
 For his own peace : yea, by those tears which roll 
 
 Silent away, too late know I what love 
 
 Is thine towards the bud that flowers so ill : " 
 
 "Was she not natural in this appeal ; 
 Or was Eve politic ? Did she design 
 This, cunningly to win her husband back ; 
 Or was it the expression of a soul 
 To all the truthfulness of nature given ? 
 Say ye who best the God-made sex do know 
 And fully understand, if woman, iirst, 
 Be not the simplest, most ingenuous work 
 Which our Creator form'd ? If she descend 
 To calculating art, then force obliged 
 A policy most alien to her heart ; 
 Then, the last anchor of her love is lost 
 If all her powers be not severely tax'd ; 
 And man, false man, obliges her to this : 
 All undeliberate, fair Eve urged these ; 
 Urgent that Adam should have some relief ; 
 
THE CHKISTIAD. 313 
 
 Ready to die if she his plight might ease ; 
 Constraining all things for this single end : 
 Her sad defeasance unto God was felt 
 Beyond endurance through the grief of soul 
 It visited on Adam ; in that grief 
 Eve sank to a remorsefulness of soul 
 More than repentant in its woe to her. 
 
 Thus she, so passionately moved at last 
 That random words incontinently rush 
 From an unguarded mouth : Could it he just 
 Thus to make Adam answer for her fault? — 
 Did he not answer ? Why should he he moved 
 Distressfully for what was done by her ? 
 She was extract from him, but, was it wise 
 In Heaven thus Adam to amerce for what, 
 Of her sole wUl, without access from him. 
 All independently and sole, she did ? 
 If Eve did wrong, she only ought to bear 
 The punishment ; the fault of one should not 
 Be thus inexorably visited 
 On two ; one so far innocent that he 
 Repented bitterly her act and deed : 
 Destruction came upon them unaware : 
 If the mere eating was a monstrous act. 
 That fruit so fatal, Why did God allow 
 Such poison in their garden ? or, Why not 
 Hedge round about the tree, and all approach 
 Forbid to Eve as 'twas to Adam bann'd ? 
 
314 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Was she a creature so beneath the care, 
 
 Or the forethought of Heaven, that it had not 
 
 Enter'd God's mind to guard her lord from what 
 
 Unconsciously was thus by her induced ? 
 
 Adam to God stood justified; and fast 
 
 And wild all her affections might revolt 
 
 From Him who by omission seem'd to leave 
 
 Adam obnoxious to an accident 
 
 That any day might cost him more than life : 
 
 Inanely thus raves she ; forgetting how 
 Adam, in his desire for her, became 
 A surety to their Maker : Could the rib 
 Made from his side the excellence of joy 
 And the dear help-mate of his bosom, rot 
 And he remain insensible ? The tie 
 Which Adam bound to Eve was more than flesh ; 
 'Twas more than bone ; they were in spirit one 
 By the mysterious law of matrimony. 
 
 Delirious on the spot she goeth for grief 
 And swoons to pale inanity away : 
 Then Adam rose, supposing that she paid 
 The penalty to him severe denounced : 
 Eve dead, who valued life ? Who could endure 
 To live without her ? What desire had he, 
 Eve absent? " !" cried he, " abolish both; 
 Let us both die together : one deceased. 
 Why should the other a despair remain ? 
 A desolation on the path of time : 
 
THE CHRI9TIAD. 315 
 
 Beautiful creature ! I will not survive 
 
 The spring from -vvMcli my parching thirst was quench'd ; 
 
 Woods and ye towers, wherein we walk'd and took 
 
 Our fill of perfect love, ye trees and flowers 
 
 Which us delighted, all created things 
 
 That gave us pleasure, take my long farewell ! 
 
 A solitary life were death to me :" 
 
 These saying, to the ground, as lifeless, he 
 Involuntary falls : upon Eve's bosom 
 Tenderly lies his aching head ; his arms 
 Around her waist are passionately clasp'd : 
 Unto that fairest of all forms he clings ; 
 Her tresses catch his wandering eye, his lips 
 Worship their flowing graces ; in his hand 
 Once more he takes what oft with such delight 
 Was play'd and sported with ; dear Eve, in turn. 
 Admiring the crisp'd beauty of his head : 
 "And is she dead?" cried he, "who drew my soul 
 So constant after her ; my light ! my life ! 
 Now life, light, beauty, fail : that this hand, 
 This white and little hand should days like ours 
 Finish ; and finish to so sad a tale : " 
 That whitest, tapering, hand was in his own ; 
 But, what doth it contain ! Alas, the rich 
 Looking, the tempting. Tree of Knowledge there 
 Reduplicated fate to him and us : 
 No apple in the wood ever like that 
 Glisten'd in conscious pride ; no arching bower 
 
316 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Hung', pendant, fruit equalling what he saw ; 
 
 And saw set off within the hand that he 
 
 Kiss'd for its alabaster-shining white : 
 
 What marvel if our Father looks both at 
 
 The frame and picture ? Look he must again ; 
 
 And as the dream to Eve, a thought to him 
 
 Suggested that, as they in life were one, 
 
 So let them be for ever join'd as one 
 
 Though death unites them : scarcely can he brook 
 
 One intervening moment ; How could he, 
 
 how had he allow'd himself from Eve, 
 
 His heaven ! for but one moment to be barr'd ? 
 
 And they were separated ! she in death ; 
 
 Her Adam in what worse than death must be, 
 
 And by this apple ! Eloquent it spoke 
 
 Unto his senses ; brightening to his eyes 
 
 As the intoxicating thought occurr'd 
 
 That it was competent for him to be 
 
 Once more united to that charming fair : 
 
 Eve was in all the thought ; God all left out ; 
 
 Too much devotion to the wife was his : 
 
 Too much ! the word recall, and rather say 
 
 The guilt of Adam did not thence arise ; 
 
 Although fair Eve absorb'd his soul from God : 
 
 Could Adam help it ? All his nature yearn'd 
 
 In sympathetic force to Eve ; his sin 
 
 Consisted not in loving her to death 
 
 But in forgetting God's express commands. 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 317 
 
 Eve had been snared ; and there, heart-broken, lay 
 What broke the tender, loving', heart of man 
 Only to see : frost-nipp'd, his flower behold ! 
 His vine was trampled down ; his garden waste ; 
 What unto him the ravager had left. 
 Deserved no other thought but how to die : 
 Here was the manner ! Dearest Eve for him 
 Had tried it most successfully j although 
 The hope of knowledge, not a wish for death. 
 Induced her fond experiment : for him, 
 Eve really died ; Adam would die for her. 
 And welcome death, destruction, all, for her ! 
 
 Thus the fatality of sin was his ; 
 Though Clotho, nor Lachesis, that compell'd : 
 Persuasive Pitho dweUeth on the lips 
 Of woman as the poets truly tell ; 
 Before her great Creator, man prefers 
 The creature made so fascinating fair : 
 Even the Sons of God when they beheld 
 Woman's seductive beauty, worshipp'd her ; 
 Melodious pulses from her heart bewitch' d. 
 Not only men but those high natures which. 
 Next to the angels, are the Sons of God : 
 Beyond the bounds of our small solar sphere 
 They came ; before diluvial vengeance roll'd 
 A gulf between our dwelling-place and theirs : 
 The thought distracts myself, what I endured 
 In ardent youth for her : I boldly storm'd, 
 
318 THE CHHISTIAD. 
 
 Astraeus-like, our heaven ; and heaven supposed 
 
 For ever mine, woman within my power ; 
 
 Ah me ! less careful than the Titan, chains 
 
 Of iron eschewing as unsightly, 
 
 Fool that I was, link'd flowers instead I chose 
 
 And with fragility my prisoner bound. 
 
 Falling to naked foUy in her lap : 
 
 Dahlah shore my locks ; now they are grown. 
 
 My love, again renew'd, must be misplaced 
 
 Upon a peerless dame ; ask not the name : 
 
 Thus 'tis with numbers whom her charming mind 
 
 Inspires with passion ; nor let us complain ; 
 
 No Omphale is mine : bright Naso loved 
 
 Not less imperially ; Tasso loved 
 
 A potent princess, and for her endured 
 
 The cross which Madness raised to him as mad. 
 
 What in our Mother was to heaven a sin, 
 Grace might be thought by Adam : in the act 
 Of sinning against God, doubtless Eve wrong'd 
 Adam ; but no intention of the wrong 
 Existing in her mind, only dear love, 
 That very love misled her to the fall 
 Which he participates : Was it for this 
 Angelic cymbals broke rejoicing out 
 When this Elysium was so ornate framed? 
 Fairer than the Hesperian ; or where young 
 Aladdin found such vegetable worth : 
 Parnassians boast no more your Daphne's grove j 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 319 
 
 Nor where the Naiads and Sylvanus haunt 
 
 The Cycladean or Italian shore ; 
 
 Pontus name not ; nor where queen Dido reign'd. 
 
 Ah woe for us the day when that fond pair, 
 True to each other, yet, disloyal turn'd. 
 Eating the fruit prohibited : then Eve, 
 As Morning look'd on Cephalus, awakes 
 Rejoicing Adam by those opening eyes : 
 It is illusion ! Can the seraph who 
 Contested words divine, thus cheat his sight ? 
 Exultant, Lucifer return' d where all 
 His hosts were gather'd; for the Law of death 
 Brought every spirit to the place where Death 
 Had his appointment by command of God : 
 AU things have certain bound ; although the Lord 
 Permitted burn to fire, storm unto air, 
 Rage to the ocean, still their bounds are fix'd ; 
 So far all things may go, one point beyond 
 Further they shall not saith Almighty God : 
 Thus Death had greatly raged v?here rage might foam ; 
 All the rebellious angels body-slain 
 And given unto him : in the sea of Death 
 They drown'd ; their spirits to his bottom went 
 As necessary down as bodies sink 
 Choked in the briny wave : Death's place was hell ; 
 Confusion, Horror, Madness, there commenced 
 Afresh with each arrival ; in that place 
 Of darkness, as each spirit sparkled down 
 
320 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Those sharks of torture glimmer through the deep, 
 The tripled hunger of their jaws wide ope : 
 If, ravening thus for every prey, they saw 
 The great prime Cause himself, Confusion with 
 Horror and Madness worse at him might dash : 
 Then hell on hell seem'd wreck'd to swallow up 
 Its Author ; all the blackest effrits rose 
 In fleshless bone, him, digital to catch : 
 On him their baleful eyes were all pour'd out ; 
 With infinite dispraise from those who own'd 
 Him their superior only while he bore 
 The undiminish'd head that lower'd God's ; 
 Through the saturnine circle down sank he. 
 With shame that seem'd an everlasting shame 
 Thus to be harrow'd : in the ocean deeps. 
 Where yet no sun can shine, forested trees 
 Of stone do propagate ; such trees may spring- 
 Up even from the bottommost of hell ; 
 They all are leafless, but swarm full, as swarm, 
 Tongataboo ! thy dark Eloian shades 
 Bat-fiU'd : hateful, their wenny serpents made 
 At him ; like those wing'd serpents which we read 
 In Plinius as bound for Arable ; 
 Or those which Israel in the desert plagued : 
 
 Was he then, the more-than-archangel Crown, 
 Second, if not the First, in heaven confess' d. 
 Prince of the seven archangels, subject to. 
 Not only death but infamies beyond 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 321 
 
 The mortal agony of any death 1 
 Intolerable grief! Must he then pine 
 In that dire prison-house of darkness, who 
 The shining heavens that were his own deem'd all 
 Too dull for an aspiring mind and pride ? 
 And was a Dira by his side to iron- 
 Cuff both the hands that would Jehovah seize ? 
 To fetter feet that wingful speed surpass'd ; 
 And clip those wings which space could not contain, 
 Nor the eternal infinite fatigue ? 
 What need to gag the mouth that boasted him. 
 In God's own heavenly court above the state 
 Of the Almighty Lord ? — ^yet gagg'd it was ; 
 As if this shame required that destiny 
 To make assurance of his silence sure ! 
 Glanced then no eye from him abroad ; too much 
 Perforce was seen by him before the thought 
 Of such dishonour o'er-amassed his soul : 
 Was this his habitation ? Were those woniis 
 To eat him here for ever ? Did such sprites 
 The angels represent who call'd him. King ! 
 Receiving titles from his high command 
 And all the consequence of deities ? 
 And was indeed this strange impersonate shape 
 Verily Lucifer 1 Was he become 
 Like to those hateful things ? Was he changed to 
 A hissing and reproach who the Divine 
 Majesty in His Godhood thought below 
 
322 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 The endless measure of his reachfal strength ? 
 strong of mind ! but impotent of arm ; 
 So o'ersecure ; so certain : where was now 
 His blazeful glory, his heroic worth, 
 And the renown of valour ? Yes, his arms, 
 Had valour but avail' d, renown attain'd !. 
 Inward turn'd then his thought ; the sense of worth 
 Came full upon him ; indignation swell'd 
 His fibred spirit ; all the bars of hell 
 He burst disdainful, and behind him left 
 Dispraise and Shame to an astonishment, 
 And disappointment, there the tongue to gnaw : 
 Yet once more he returns ; for who can bear 
 The isolation of both mind and thought ? 
 Through all our universe th' Archgerent ranged 
 Companionless ; the company of none 
 Kept he since the revolt ; for his proud chiefs 
 Received the wishes of his mind and bore 
 For, not with, him the tower of his thought 
 With all their strength of soul and person up : 
 Those pillars were o'erthrown ; but still the tower 
 Remaining, when this universe seem'd gain'd 
 From Him who made it, then the Anarch turns, 
 Firm persevering, where a natural hope 
 Pointed both pride and spirit, unto hell : 
 He comes ! for what but hell might entertain 
 That dreadful Spirit? And, now. Hell, the scene 
 Of his opprobrium, those feet should lick; 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 323 
 
 Such was the gladdening' tidings brought by him ! 
 And such the fortune, Lucifer, to thee ! 
 
 Where worst confusion, horror, madness, raged 
 Comes Lucifer : ! not as iirst he came 
 Compulsive ; but of choice, deliberately. 
 Into the desert of all worlds comes he ; 
 Into the blackness of despair, a light 
 Radiant he comes ! — not as a traveller bound 
 Both hand and foot to die, but as a king 
 Returning from an enterprise of high 
 Performance and desert : vastly surprised 
 All the dread spirits of th' infernal pit. 
 Then Hell had concourse ; DevUdom rush'd to 
 A general concourse that to see and hear 
 Which now amazed they saw and long'd to know : 
 
 Those Damn'd are gratified ; from his great height 
 The Anarch stoop'd not to express in word 
 His merit, but the loss to God made known 
 By the mysterious lang^ag-e which was held 
 Aforetime when the angels were gain'd o'er 
 By mad ambition : as in heaven he spoke. 
 Now in the Pit imperially is shown 
 Proof of his dauntless, unsubdued, mind. 
 And all the resolution of a will 
 That yet the pride of empire might redeem ; 
 His was the mind to sway heaven, earth, and hell ! 
 A fearful joy attends him ; such as hell 
 In such success might naturally feel : 
 
 y2 
 
324 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Adramelec approaches who denied 
 
 His throne to Lucifer while yet his state 
 
 Appear'd resistless : to that Prince he turns 
 
 Repentant and admiring : that was done 
 
 Which none conceived ; had they conceived it, none 
 
 But the Archgerent burst such bars as theirs ; 
 
 Or, if they burst, effected hope where hope 
 
 Seem'd sheer impossibility itself: 
 
 " As erst in heaven our King " cried he, " be thou 
 
 To us the King, nay, Emperor, of Hell ! " 
 
 Then Timiel, Nebo, Rassach, Aricon, 
 And fell Darpathrus, their adhesion bring, 
 Though he had slain them : such was Hades to them 
 And every angel, that whatever held 
 The scintillation of a hope thereto. 
 Was desperately hail'd : soul-griped they come 
 Unto their Lord and Master with acclaim : 
 With acclamation the infernal realm 
 Pours to his honour ; all the wolfish sprites 
 Were famish'd to such gaunt and sore distress 
 That hell turn'd upside-down when he made known 
 The chance of their emission from its place : 
 Death, hunger-mad, rampanting at their head, 
 Devours the universe where Death might reign ; 
 Despite its Maker, if the hope were true 
 Thus brought to desolation : all his hands, 
 His scarce discernible, his ghosty, hands. 
 Go up to Lucifer clamantous loud : 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 325 
 
 how Death hunger'd still ; and Death should have 
 The Luciferian harvest ; 'twas his own ! 
 His scathefiil teeth are whet in urging hell, 
 From all its weltering bounds, towards our sphere. 
 (No Mantuan pipe is mine !) To Darkness then 
 Grim Desolation calls ; I saw them both 
 Look into one another's brassy eyes, 
 Their heads so close together that you knew 
 Scarce which was which in conference : 'twas Hell 
 Dreading to lose the angels thus possess'd : 
 Hell stiffens straight to fear unknowing how, 
 Since one his roof broke through, the rest should be 
 His own for ever ? Night in tempest bursts 
 Upon them, and convulsive Terror dragging 
 All devils to her feet, Lucifer heap'd 
 Such chains upon them and so blench'd their eyes 
 That HeU to slavery was brought forthwith 
 And fitted for the seat of newborn power : 
 God, or none other, he will be ; and heaven 
 Its new possessor shall, full soon, receive 
 In sceptred pomp, with the terrestrial orb ! 
 Meanwhile the mightiest Princedom will enthrone 
 Himself in all the terror that is his ! 
 Flames flame to flames receding from his eyes. 
 All Malebolge a-roar : those fearful sights 
 Fall back aghast from him : Night puts them to 
 Such work as Night requires : unequall'd, she 
 Compels from all their smoking torments what 
 
326 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 No angels, only spectres, could erect : 
 Peel'd by the fasting fires, wailing they raise 
 From all the hackled bottoms such a throne 
 As seated Lucifer in pride ; above 
 His angels first, and far above himself : 
 
 Thus Pandemonium was laid and built 
 For the recover'd rebels : hope, though lorn. 
 Was the renewal of exceeding power ; 
 For if the Tyranny of heaven could be 
 Diminish' d, hell were tolerable to them ; 
 The temper of their Chief was also theirs ; 
 And pain, though once a torment, stood rebuked 
 Before the pride of this recover'd hope : 
 Every angel comes into the League 
 As it originally stood with him 
 Who ruled in death as life th' immortal gods : 
 Out they petrifically flare upon 
 The broods of chaos and reproach of night ; 
 The spawn of the undying worm they spurn : 
 The jinns and scolopendrian creatures which 
 Hitherto fail'd their need, aside are frown'd. 
 For they to Lucifer again are raised. 
 And in the raising feel as gods upsprung 
 Resistless from the hated heel of Power 
 With an unconquerable might of soul. 
 
BOOK yiii. 
 
THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 Our author thanks Religion for her Bacred lore, and proceeds 
 to show how the fall of man deteriorates the terrestrial worlds ; 
 but Adam consoles our general Mother, although she lives to see 
 violence and murder raging through the earth : At length, such 
 is the enormity of man, that God visits our race with judgment ; 
 Noe alone is saved ; as it would seem, only for the still further 
 despiting of God's Holy Spirit : 
 
 Still, having the redemption of His work at heart, in the in- 
 scrutable knowledge which is His, to our astonishment it may be 
 but, yet, according to the councils of the Divine will, God, at 
 length, sends His Son into the flesh to die for, and so to save, 
 this Humanity : Satan announcing the Advent of Christ to his 
 infernal Powers, they fortify themselves in haste, and scheme how 
 to fi'ustrate man's great Deliverer. 
 
 Time. — The seventh and eighth day. 
 
BOOK VIII. 
 
 -o- 
 
 LiKE a day dreamer through whose fervid brain 
 The evil spirit passes to a realm 
 Beyond the precincts of all mortal thought, 
 Long doubtful if the narrow isthmus where 
 He stands be earth ; so, supersensuous, I 
 Suflfering the gods of an incarnate pride. 
 Dreading their mighty shades while Thought pursued 
 The vision into that infernal world. 
 Could almost doubt what, now, is clear discern'd 
 Returning from the chase, my angel good : 
 My constant angel ! what without thee were 
 Mankind ? this page were blank without thy light : 
 My safeguard thou hast been when, horrified. 
 In the dread presence of the king of hell 
 I stood ; and now thy sacred learning let 
 Me solemn trace, through all the labyrinth 
 Of the fell minotaur that we emprise : 
 More than the daughter of king Minos thou. 
 Religion ! art to me ; by thee I come 
 
330 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 And go from earth to heaven, from heaven to hell, 
 And bravely charge the monster : grateful voice 
 To thee I raise ; the drag-on dragg'd to light ; 
 Stabb'd mortally : if, yet, immortal he 
 Live on, such wounds shall incapacitate 
 His most devouring jaws and others urge 
 Wounding upon him ; time to man redeem'd : 
 Terrible work was his ; long while these worlds 
 Paid tribute of their best his maws to fill : 
 Thus through aU generations, woe was wrought 
 Until the Holy Spirit, grieved, withdrew 
 From our terrestrial skies : for, now, the sphere 
 Which man inhabits, with mankind, descends ; 
 It lapses, falls ; in consentaneous sort 
 With him who all this universe insoul'd 
 And represented to the sight of God, 
 The perfect microcosm of His work. 
 
 When man's condition alter' d, the Creation, 
 With sympathetic horror, alter'd to 
 His new sensation : the terrestrial lord, 
 In falling, brought, or forced these worlds with him 
 Propinquitous to hell : then comets flared 
 Where Lucifer eminently prevail' d : 
 Some worlds became, all on a sudden, dust ; 
 Star-dust they call the shining waste of worlds 
 That glitters here and there, enspangled bright 
 Falling ; sometimes like shining stars afar ; 
 Sometimes as thunderbolts, fire-black to death : 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 331 
 
 The central pole of the terrestrial sphere, 
 Lost its relation with the sphere which next 
 The human intervenes ; 'twixt this and heaven ; 
 That losing, light to us diminish'd straight : 
 Its high collateral place successive, then 
 Was broken or snapt short ; confusion comes 
 Upon its line, to heavenly concord strung j 
 What was to praise up-pitch'd, to moaning fell ; 
 The slow, majestic, measure it express'd 
 SuccessionaUy grave, congestive went 
 To discord more licentious wUd and loud : 
 With all th' organic force it own'd, that pole 
 Disorder'd rush'd, or forced itself, where man, 
 Its master, so determinately lay : 
 His mental turpitude broke in upon 
 The equilibrium of every orb 
 Emotional to man ; and that, impulsed, 
 Enforced, compell'd, to incidence with him, 
 All the affinities of things were gone 
 Perverse, strange modified, and odd to God : 
 The unities were to proportion lost : 
 Their proper tendency thus wrench'd awry, 
 All life shrunk frigid in ; the air became 
 Thick, turbid, solid : bluster then the winds 
 From gentle breezes ; wall-eyed Winter rush'd 
 The tender spring to nip with withering pains : 
 For growing rain, comes hail ; all vernal things 
 Beating to ground, until the earth was spoilt ; 
 
332 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Like Palestine when famine, fire, and sword, 
 And pestilence, before the ploughshare went 
 Strewing the land with salt : ^gyptia mourns 
 Unto the Koord or Othoman conqueror, no 
 Such desolation as succeeded then : 
 Pison, exceeded NUus ; though the drink 
 Be milky sweet; that flowing river, with 
 Gihon, and Hiddekel, went underground 
 And wasted subterraneously ; Euphrate 
 Maintain'd a troublous course ; but all the shores 
 Adjacent were abased : Havilah fell 
 Into sterility : like the Punic coasts, 
 When man-deserted : Adam suiFer'd worse : — 
 As the degree of thought is past the force 
 Of matter, so, past this material change, 
 His mental constitution was reduced : 
 When the son-husband of Jocasta went 
 Forth of plague-smit Diospolis, what he 
 Suffer'd no Sophocles may write ; nor what 
 Antigone when imprecated felt ; 
 The flaming cherub who our parents drove 
 Out of their forfeit Garden, wept to see, 
 And still he weeps to tell, what they endured. 
 Outcast, at that more agonising time. 
 
 Heavenly goddess ! what unnumber'd woes 
 To man from disobedience spring amain ; 
 Worlds sink in gloom which blessed light rejoiced. 
 And our high ancestors like beasts are made : 
 
THE CHKISTIAD. 333 
 
 Against inclement skies, their shrinking flesh 
 
 Is ill protected by fig-leaves and skins : 
 
 A sordid care usurps degraded life ; 
 
 Their wishes only such fufilment have 
 
 As labour, all unholpen, finds this day 
 
 From brawny arms put painfully to use, 
 
 Sweat from the brow demonstrating that pain : 
 
 dread depression : ye who once enjoy' d 
 
 Luxurious ease and opulential days. 
 
 But whom the sad vicissitudes of life 
 
 Reduced to penury and want, can tell 
 
 What mortal shame on poverty attends ; 
 
 The shameful degradation which its need 
 
 Imposes on mankind : you pamper'd Dives ; 
 
 Though if one rose out of the grave to tell 
 
 The rich what Lazarus endured, those blind 
 
 Would not repent the hardness that is theirs ; 
 
 Though it be easier for a cable to 
 
 Thread the small needle's eye than you should feel 
 
 Touch'd by the low necessities of those 
 
 Whom Fortune paupers ; yet shall Laughter come 
 
 In evil time on you ; avenging their 
 
 Distressful supplications for the crumbs 
 
 Off from your table : let this thought inform, 
 
 Though it will not convert, those rich who scan 
 
 Our volumes on the down of idleness : 
 
 When I was robb'd, who speeded then away 
 
 From the stripp'd board which feasted them so oft ; 
 
334 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Boastful of friendship and alliance high, 
 
 Only that friendship to forget when all 
 
 My leafy honours fell one night, law-stripp'd ? 
 
 But all who struggle 'gainst the adverse tide. 
 
 With us rejoice that we were saved from that 
 
 Last pang of wretchedness, to beg and pray 
 
 Those whom both Pride and Conscience well despised 
 
 As far more pitiable in their excess 
 
 Than was the loss of house and land to me : 
 
 From them nothing I hoped, I nothing ask'd ; 
 
 But, looking upward, that sure promise claim'd 
 
 Which all the righteous have nor God denied : 
 
 The daily bread which our Redeemer craved, 
 
 At once came down ; as to Elijah came 
 
 His constant ration from blest heaven ; with all 
 
 The miracles of goodness and of grace : 
 
 And some I saw who, in receipt of wealth. 
 
 Themselves impoverish'd to such a plight 
 
 As worse than death necessitated while 
 
 My bread was found, clear water close at hand. 
 
 In the wide howling wilderness so waste : 
 
 If from the hard assay while there, I came 
 
 Less drossy and more purified ; to thee, 
 
 Again to thee, dear patroness, the thank ; 
 
 My grateful thank. Religion ! is to thee : 
 
 But hunger urgently our sire compell'd 
 
 To soil his hands unused, in search of roots ; 
 
 To braze his skin against the trunks of trees, 
 
THE CHBISTIAD. 335 
 
 Which mount he must, or want the milky nut ; 
 And many a bruise was his in breaking that, 
 Before the kernel yielded to his want : 
 All fi'uit against his hated teeth deploy'd 
 Their rind ; and they had stones, and inward cores, 
 Disrelishable, indigestible. 
 Injurious unto man : wood-honey tempts 
 His palate ; but the honey-makers watch 
 Their store continually ; pernicious stings 
 Threat'ning the felon who their comb approach'd : 
 Rich clusters tempting hang ; but every bunch 
 Is not a wholesome treat : poisonous things 
 Crowd up malicious ; hoping to ensnare 
 His ignorant appetite unto that death 
 Which Adam justly fears in berried guise : 
 To death man was deliver' d, for he died 
 Continually in these ; although the term 
 Vital was, unaccountably, prolong'd : 
 Is it not death one's self-esteem to lose 
 In detestation ? It is worse than death 
 For love to see its best beloved in pain : 
 A cruel death was his being thus obliged 
 To eat what came begrudged, whence' er it came : 
 To rend bad bread with force out of the hand 
 Of nature or of God, is desperate : 
 Man cannibal became ; both before God 
 And nature, which revolted from his eye : 
 All creatures flee him in abhorrent dread ; 
 
336 THE CHRISTEAD. 
 
 Or with a bloody eye his footsteps track : 
 Thus lost the trellis'd bower of Eden, man 
 Was fain to seek a cavern from the teeth 
 That whiten'd for him and the jaws that pined : 
 Disconsolated Mother ! sorrows then 
 Pierced also through thy soul ; as sorrows pierced 
 Thy Virgin-daughter; made the sinless Eve, 
 Who bore the Man of Sorrows ; with all grief 
 So well acquainted, that it smote her through 
 The soul as with a sword our Lord to see : 
 As John attempted, so would Adam staunch 
 Eve's tears with such assurance as a man 
 Hath always in his power to plead and prove : 
 Woman is tender ; man, not half so warm 
 But ever generous and considerate 
 To the requirements of his weaker half : 
 Thus for dear Eve, the cavern was declined 
 So soon as he might imitate the bower 
 Which they enjoy'd in Paradise : with all 
 The gold and purple mosses of the wood. 
 Her husband lined it to repose the head 
 Of that poor, weak, and dear distressed thing : 
 AU through the day encouragement he brought 
 To her timidity ; the moony night 
 Restores her to those strong sustaining arms 
 For which all day Eve passionately long'd : 
 
 Thus wedded love may be disturb'd ; but, never 
 Can its conjunction cease : what God hath join'd. 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 337 
 
 No fate may put asunder : man and wife, 
 Though twainly personal, are but one flesh ; 
 And much more one in sympathy are they ; 
 One single soul and intermixant mind : 
 
 Herein behold the consecrated root 
 Of conjugality ; although, alas. 
 Even the basis of our Race corrupts 
 Into putridities of nameless kind : 
 Stupraceous embraces often yield 
 Their fruit, like chastest love ; their kind alike 
 Corporally : but the eye and ear of man, 
 Often mistake appearances : when Eve 
 Bore Cain, thus she the first-born chUd mistook ; 
 Exulting to have gotten him from the Lord : 
 Was then that fratricide the seed of love ? 
 Rather suppose him from the lust, not love, 
 Of man proceeding ; generated by 
 Animal heat ; the first of murderers : 
 For in addition to the sorrows which 
 Such doleful change unto our parents brought. 
 And all the sorrows which Eve bore for him, 
 Cain, raging, took away his brother's life : 
 
 What marvel if the earth with blood cried out ; 
 Worst violence thereafter : cross'd in wish 
 And purpose as mankind continual were. 
 Then waged the Rephaims lust-begotten war 
 Warring as demigods : like him, bronze-crown' d, 
 Where the French Louvre boasts such works of art 
 
388 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 As none know what to call them, gods, or men : 
 
 Silernian giants, Psyllians of fire, 
 
 Bold Ophiagians, Cyreanites, 
 
 Or Marsians, these to call, in fury they, 
 
 The sons of Belial and the Vandals shamed. 
 
 And Genseric that cruellest of kings : 
 
 Yet in the land of Nod each art in stone 
 And metal first began : the Cainites well 
 Might the improvement of their life desire. 
 Since they no farther than this life cared aught : 
 God's kingdom was not theirs ; nor could they hope. 
 Even though 'twere wish'd, that kingdom to attain : 
 A Polity they raise, enthroning Cain 
 To judge his father Adam ; on a mount. 
 Hewn to proportion for its base, uprose 
 Their capitol, of polish'd marbles built 
 Superbly ; porphyries, lazulis, verds- 
 Antique, with onychites inbuild the whole ; 
 On pedestals of solid gold were raised 
 Orizian columns, flowers upon them friezed ; 
 High architraves and graceful cornices 
 Uplift and well sustain its starry roof : 
 There Adam they arraign ; and he was judged 
 Criminal in not seizing that best tree 
 Of life when knowledge was by Eve enjoy'd : 
 More proud than Csesar when to Pompey's bust 
 He turn'd death-stricken, Adam was adjudged 
 .As worthy death unto the Cainan gods : 
 
THE CHR18TIAD. 339 
 
 Gods they had chosen, hewing to themselves 
 The cisterns that no water ever held ; 
 the infatuation of mankind ! 
 Hell thus deceived and so excited them ; 
 For Moloch coming to observe what earth 
 And its inhabitants might mean, did not 
 Disdain the wake of his superior lord 
 But won the Rephaimites to idol him : 
 Well might the prediluvianites enthrone 
 To their imagination one whom war 
 Continually delighted, like themselves : 
 A lifeful image they to him erect ; 
 Filling the earth with rapine, iire, and sword : 
 The Sethites they most fiendishly enslave, 
 With circumstances such as Aristarchus, 
 Though hypercritical, might yet confess 
 Not ill related even in this page : 
 
 Yet the half-emptied earth soon overflows 
 With population of another breed ; 
 With the Rephaimic seed other is mix'd 
 Prolifically, from the strangers who. 
 In the ability then own'd by man. 
 From other orbs in this material sphere 
 Journey' d, as they might journey, hitherward: 
 The sympathies, affections, inclinations, 
 Of every star we see, being the same ; 
 Whatever difference in them is found, 
 With the totality of things consists ; 
 z 2 
 
340 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 The race of man innumerous species hath 
 As they are numerous, though th' inhabitants, 
 Say of yon moon without an atmosphere, 
 Can hardly be supposed to us akin ; 
 But as the moon has geographic parts 
 Like this our earth, so, like mankind, a tribe 
 Of beings lord over the lambent moon. 
 Co-ordinately natural to us, 
 Our categoric rank in nature theirs : 
 And yet the day may come when, in the power 
 Which still to man pertains, the gulf that now 
 Sunders effectually terrestrial tribes. 
 Some master-mind may bridge, or oversail. 
 Communication found for all our worlds : 
 If we, against both wind and tide, compel 
 The roaring sea ; and the electric fire. 
 Obedient to our high command, outstrip 
 Time as a laggard ; if both space, and time. 
 Seem in this operation small to man, 
 We reasonably hope to open up 
 AU worlds unto the commerce of both mind 
 And body when the golden age returns 
 Promised us by the prophette and by God : 
 As continents were lost and found, so worlds 
 May be recover'd unto worlds again ; 
 Their several kinds of being, differing scarce 
 More than the families of this earth ; so long 
 To one another all unknown, nor dreamt : 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 341 
 
 Genesial sons of God (not angels) these, 
 Seeing Cain's daughters, were by them bewitch'd 
 From the superior air of stars, insphered 
 Higher than this far earth : perplex'd they saw 
 Beauty in other fashion than their own ; 
 And that beguiles them with the cup of such 
 Charming enchantment that to them were born 
 Races of lordly might ; renown'd beyond 
 The Rephaims ; who, in turn, to them submit : 
 NephUim these are caU'd where men may pore 
 The history of those who sin increased 
 So fast, so furious, so incessant, that 
 It grieved Jehovah to the heart for man. 
 Fallen, or falling, to the Hadean prince : 
 The Holy Spirit was despited through 
 Our total system by the sinful race i 
 Every imagination of man's heart 
 Was a continual insult to the Lord. 
 
 Like imitative sheep, if the bold ram 
 Crosses a ditch the flock wUl after him ; 
 So, when our sire transgress' d, though he return'd 
 Most bittei'ly repentant to the Lord, 
 His headstrong children worse offence repeat,. 
 And worse continually : unto the shrine 
 Of Glory, in the midst of which appear'd 
 Visible Power on earth, Lucifer sent 
 Mankind with such enormities that God 
 Withdrew His Holy Spirit from the world : 
 
34:2 THE CHHISTIAD. 
 
 'Tis all incredible, but if the Prince 
 
 Of angels sinn'd and our Forefather fell, 
 
 What may not be believed ? Upon that shrine 
 
 The King of hell they figure to o'errule 
 
 This star ; as many other starry orbs 
 
 He ruled, in spite of the reluctant Lord : 
 
 What in His absence might the wicked do. 
 Was done ; beyond example known to us ; 
 Nature was forced ; impossibilities 
 Attempted ; all the genii were bound 
 Alchemically; old Proteus stood 
 Starkly obedient to the operous arts 
 Of witches; she of Endor, who raised up 
 Samuel from the grave, from these might learn 
 More than Sardinian herbs of poison preach ; 
 Who had the seal of Solomon, stood aghast 
 Before their more than Rosicrusian tomes 
 Of weird-writ blasphemies ; one wizard, through 
 Centuries had eaten the refuse 
 Of still-born infants mix'd with broken hearts 
 And toadstools ; the mephitic fens to him, 
 Zamiel by name, equally with the snows 
 Of Asrac common, Trivia often paled 
 Before the antic pastimes he essay' d 
 Amongst the elements ; a fury his, 
 Direr than Calcabrina's : such a wretch 
 Was he, so worn, so lank inskeleton'd. 
 So gaunt, grim, horrid, that Megsera, though 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 343 
 
 Most Acherontic, were afraid of him : 
 Fed upon acids far beyond the sharp 
 Necessity which Mithridates ate, 
 Ordures defecated to foetal slime 
 Preferr'd by him as food, the curd of his 
 Virility, to language such as ours 
 Bemaius necessarily insoluble : 
 Before his face, black turn'd the air ; red fire 
 Went out apparently ; water shrunk in ; 
 Even the Nephilim fear'd, dreaded, him : 
 
 But Noah fear'd not ; he alone was just 
 And perfect in his generation : him 
 The Lord bespoke familiarly, for Noe 
 Found grace in those clear eyes that see the heart : 
 The pure in heart also their God shall see ; 
 This is our promise : for the race of man 
 God would not all cast off, although the world 
 Ripen' d unto destruction : in the day 
 Of wrath the wicked worlds were visited ; 
 But Noah, cover'd in before the Flood 
 Which came upon their unrepentant state, 
 Had also his exemplars in such orbs 
 As to purgation were submitted then : 
 Out from the sea a stifling vapour creeps 
 While Noah preach'd repentance ; all the air 
 Grows murky tUl the sun no longer shines ; 
 The moon is darken'd ; all the stars are dimm'd : 
 
 As when the brooding thunder terror strikes 
 
344 
 
 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Through flocks and herds, the wolfish beasts of prey 
 
 Shrink to their solitudes ; so now the pards 
 
 And ursines of the time those caverns seek 
 
 Whence scientific search produced them ; in 
 
 Franconia, Eirkdale, Mendip : oft have I 
 
 Studied their fossil bones where Friendship kept, 
 
 Expectantly, the villa warm for me ; 
 
 With the Newfoundland dog, by his fireside 
 
 There Youth and venerable Age discoursed 
 
 Antediluvian species lost for aye ; 
 
 A pious tear to Law ! and, 0, with him 
 
 Join'd be another cleric in our line, 
 
 The bishop's learned neighbour : though severe 
 
 In pedagogic state at Westminster, 
 
 And I was then scarce older than a boy ; 
 
 Where the Glastonian abbots wassail kept 
 
 My happy home, he loved with me to spend 
 
 A livelong summer or a winter day : 
 
 Once as within his garden bounds we stroll'd 
 
 High conversant, the dean declared my life 
 
 The happiest possible ; above the strife 
 
 Of words, a learned, unambitious, life. 
 
 The law of kindness ruling through the whole ; 
 
 " Why then " said I, " do you confine your birds 
 
 In yonder aviary ? the fearful doves 
 
 Cruelly placed within a falcon's ken :" 
 
 Those doves to Goodenough were so attach'd. 
 
 That liberty was offer'd them in vain ; 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 345 
 
 The hawk was caged in a considerate place : 
 How have I rambled ! yet, this section, man. 
 
 Not gods, chiefly discoursing, Thoughts humane 
 
 And Friendship humbly seek a word for both : 
 
 Be ye immortalized who taught my youth, 
 
 And honourably approved that slippery time : 
 
 Youth all unsafe must be j such social rank 
 
 As theirs improved, and fructified, our leaf; 
 
 And they foresaw when fruit would follow what 
 
 Rathe budding was admired and blest in me ; 
 
 Upon my heart thus both inscribed their names : 
 
 And, yet, Scorn cries " What have such names to do 
 
 With verse heroic and a theme like thine ? " 
 
 The reverence due to Age, to Learning due. 
 
 And love of Worth ; the grateful memory 
 
 Of Virtue, giveth grace ; such as proceeds 
 
 From the fond clasping of a tender vine 
 
 Over tbe grand and most solemnar fane : 
 
 Its virid leaves shall make the marble seem 
 
 Whiter than usual ; and the clustering grapes 
 
 Of purple make that white almost divine : 
 
 Nay, more ! such offerings demonstrate best 
 
 That fair Humanity, which still redeem'd 
 
 The Adamities had they thereto inclined : 
 
 It is a part of life ; without the sense 
 
 Of virtue, when no sympathy exists 
 
 For excellence. Humanity is gone : 
 
 When Noah therefore was a scoff become, 
 
346 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Mankind were but embruted lust and death ; 
 The deluge torrent-roaring on them came : 
 
 Astrologers were puzzled ; for, since God 
 Makes this creation visibly to show 
 The else invisible, comets rush'd out 
 From the inane of space upon their eyes. 
 Flaming : star-gazers at their tables work'd ; 
 To altitude, and declination, law. 
 Affection, motion, and other like terms : 
 But every calculation was at fault 
 Which physics offer'd blindly : wizards then 
 Sought to their orgies and blaspheming rites ; 
 Their wither'd hands with a collective force 
 Sent incantation' d, craped the burning sun, 
 Which prematurely set : a sough, or sigh 
 Out from the ocean comes ; the water sprites 
 Wondering how : one, more adventurous, forth 
 From the sea-bottom stealing, came to them, 
 Cumeeau-like ; the Tarquin of the time 
 Seized it until she shriek' d, but nothing learn'd. 
 Although her freckled paws were pointed up ; 
 And common sense interpreted that sign 
 As signifying vengeance from on high : 
 
 Their fires beneath the sacrifices, brought 
 Unto Beelzebub, smoked day and night : 
 Brains are dash'd out before him ; throats are cut ; 
 Children they throttle ; some in twain are rent. 
 His altars gore-bespatter'd ; all his fane 
 
THE CHKISTIAD. 347 
 
 Swimming' in the abominations wrought : 
 Salivar foam from their abounding glands, 
 
 And all the gastric bitterness of chyle 
 
 Those gleering sorcerers spend, with frantic joy, 
 
 Ritular, to the imp of darkness there : 
 
 But still the heavens grow darker; all the seas 
 
 Continually belch hideously crabb'd 
 
 Monsters, and reptiles, over all the land ; 
 
 By high and angry waves fiercely assail' d : 
 
 Earth to an end draws near, so these their ends 
 
 Of wickedness do compass : comets they 
 
 Shock-broke by all the counter-forces which, 
 
 (Mind over matter) mighty magians sway ; 
 
 Such were their wizard-spells ! fire, generating 
 
 Against the increased waters ; swelling up 
 
 Into the judgment on them all denounced ; 
 
 For all the world being threaten' d since man went 
 
 So desperately wrong, its balanced powers 
 
 Upset, thus they desperately conjured 
 
 External bodies and all elements, 
 
 By every means within the mystic art, 
 
 To make, yes, God and prophets out great liars : 
 
 Hence when the hour even more frightful grew 
 
 To the increasing waters, all the dread 
 
 Productions gender'd in both thought and deed 
 
 By them, within that temple were upshown : 
 Still the dank danger but the more increased 
 
 For this resistance : back ten comets w^ent 
 
348 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Recalcitrating J but, still, on the course 
 
 Of stately vengeance comes : as if with grief, 
 
 Or worse, possess' d, the Sins of all the world 
 
 Appear' d, innumerable, to quench the stars : 
 
 So when the excommunicated go 
 
 To Tophet, all the tapers are put out : 
 
 But man, pride-swollen rush'd among them aU, 
 
 With all the wizards, work like that to stop : 
 
 'Twas done ; those dread remembrancers gone up 
 
 Like swamp-born meteors : hardly were they in 
 
 Mid-air, when every sin collapsed and fell, 
 
 A gout of putrid blood, on those below : 
 
 Then one dash'd forward through the devilish glare 
 Of that fell priesthood, calling every fiend 
 To witness the destruction of his hope j 
 Chaos was coming in the wake of night ; 
 The voidy blank of chaos was return'd 
 To this creation ; earth to uproar went j 
 Death had his final feast on earth outspread : 
 Portentous silence over man and beast 
 Reigns ; breathless expectation on them seized ; 
 Cyclopean horror closer draws the pall, 
 And then were burst the bounds of all the seas : 
 Abysmal waves outspout ; pluvial shrouds 
 From all the skies down-fall and end the scene : 
 
 Thus on the world delugial ruin came ; 
 Every firmamental cloud dissolved 
 In cataracts ; the rising hills went down 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 349 
 
 Submerged ; submerged were all the mountain-heights : 
 
 And all flesh died that in the earth was made, 
 
 Fowl, cattle, reptile ; man too died with them : 
 
 The remnant saved in this particular world 
 
 Was only Lamech's son ; with him his house, 
 
 From Enos, Cainan, Mahaleel, Jared, 
 
 Enoch, and good Methuselah, inbuilt : 
 
 When all the aqueous humours met conjunct 
 Drowning this world, the whole terrestrial sphere. 
 In its community of order, felt 
 And suffer'd with it : perturbation rose 
 To deadly change in every orb that fail'd 
 Allegiance unto God ; throughout the whole 
 System of units plann'd hke this our earth : 
 All the organic frame of nature went 
 Into disorder ; continuity 
 Of things was at an end ; union fail'd 
 And sympathy, save that which forces all 
 That fail in duty where the law divine 
 A common judgment to all sin appoints : 
 Thus justice expiation claims from all 
 Alike, impartially : committing all 
 To one and the same punishment for sin. 
 
 Around the eternal Throne on high, surprised. 
 And pale, all the angelic Sanctities 
 Do gather : " From the heavenly places went 
 The great apostate Princedom, but the sphere 
 Created by the Son of God Most High 
 
350 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 And sanctified by the Holy Ghost, 
 
 Was that to be unmade for him who Eve, 
 
 And others Kke her, in that sphere beguiled ? 
 
 Destruction, surely ! is not by the choice 
 
 Of God, but Thy permission : Son Divine ! 
 
 Graciously man recover from such fall 
 
 As he desired not, nor design'd : the crew 
 
 Rebellious, disappoint ! their art, frustrate ! 
 
 Their hellish hope, o'erthrow ! the worlds were made. 
 
 Coequal, coeternal, God ! for Thee, 
 
 Not the Archgerent : God, thy sway assert ! 
 
 Let not the trebly-sceptred One forego 
 
 His right of Sov'reignty : tornadoes threat 
 
 The axled orbs ; stop the great deeps, restrain 
 
 Storm, and decrease the waters that wiU end 
 
 In everlasting death those worlds ! " cried they ; 
 
 And God indulged them : shall not God rejoice 
 
 All His adoring ministers of Light ? 
 
 Shall He who answer never fail'd to man. 
 
 The invocation of bless'd angels leave 
 
 Unheeded and denied ? Are then the ears 
 
 Of Him who framed the ear of man and made 
 
 The mind of angels, dull'd, that God cannot 
 
 Hear all who call upon His Holy Name ? 
 
 Spangled with countless stars, Thy heaven, God, 
 
 Thy servants saw j its blue infinity 
 
 Vaulted with the similitude of wings. 
 
 Which, quiv'ring o'er all worlds, their prayer afiirm'd ; 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 351 
 
 The paroxysmal rage already past : 
 
 From His just anger, law, and justice turn'd, 
 
 Death to the bottoms sought where lay interr'd 
 
 The Nephilim ; alive, though thunderstruck ; 
 
 Chaos fled withering back in ghosty haste : 
 
 So from high Himmala, the red Simoom 
 
 Melts hasty ; as a fog before the sun, 
 
 Rising meridionally splendid : then 
 
 The deeps indeed were stopp'd, the rain restrain' d, 
 
 The watery flood continually decreased 
 
 Till Ararat appear'd ; and there, behold ! 
 
 Propitious mercy Noah had preserved ; 
 
 The only righteous : few were found with him. 
 
 But from tbe smallest grain a tree may spring ; 
 
 From nothing, heaven outsprung ; to God, nor small, 
 
 Nor great, nor few, nor many, may exist. 
 
 Although a silly sparrow cannot fall. 
 
 Nor even one loose hair from ofi" our head. 
 
 But by His knowledge : He will not be judged. 
 
 Nor guess'd by size or number ; high above 
 
 The thought of man and flight of angels, God 
 
 Immortal reigns ! choosing ofttimes the small 
 
 Great to confound : the few to overcome 
 
 Millions ; it is His will : ye cherubim 
 
 And seraphim who worship God Most High, 
 
 All the bright spirits that confess Him King, 
 
 Although immeasurably far removed 
 
 From the refulgent heavens in which you shine. 
 
352 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 God's excellency I, on earth, as ye, 
 Devoutly fall'n before His Throne, adore. 
 
 Out from an ark divinely plann'd by Him 
 Who worlds design' d, the righteous Noah comes ; 
 With him his sons, their wives, and every beast : 
 Up build the altar ! not to Themis, as 
 Deucalion and Pyrrha might have done ; 
 Unto Jehovah Noah offerings brought, 
 And then appear'd the Bow of Promise bright, 
 God's iris, arching hope o'er every world 
 Unto the fallen tribes reprieved and saved. 
 
 Than any garden which Pomona own'd. 
 Or his who an anemone became. 
 Or where umbrageous figtrees in Deccan 
 Spread pillar'd roofs to ease, the race of man 
 A better Eden found, beyond Shinaar : 
 There they the ages known as golden, long 
 Enjoy'd in fulness : for this earth was risen. 
 Like Jairus's fair daughter Cidli, from 
 The dead ; and often Earth would sweetly smile 
 Relating how forlorn and lone she felt 
 Until the blessed rainbow shone on high 
 Assurance that Almighty God was kind 
 To her renascence : but the race of man. 
 Like dogs which to their vomit will return. 
 Or like the swine that will be in the mire, 
 Must wallow and embrute : immoderate drink 
 Brings Noah to a shame so fatal that 
 
THE CHRISTXAD. 353 
 
 Better the Maronean he had drunk, 
 Or what a Messalina poison'd deep : 
 Macrinus mix'd dehcious death ; and Jael 
 Gave Sisera, from Barak fled, a draught 
 That only ended life ; his dearer peace 
 Was lost to Noah when accursed Cham 
 That nakedness perceived which too much wine 
 Occasion' d, and, as fatally, betray'd. 
 
 Cham with his sons, Chus, Misraim, Phuth, Chanaan, 
 With Saba, Hevila, Sabtah, Regma, 
 Sabtechah, and Nemrod from Noah part ; 
 Four cities Nemrod ruled, great Babylon, 
 Arach, Achad, Chalanne, wall'd : Assur 
 Erected Nineve, Chale, Resen, 
 And Rehoboth ; Misraim erected On, 
 Sais, Memphis, and the cities of the Nile : 
 Phethrusim and the Chasluhim command 
 Sea-coasts : from Sidon to Gaza, Lesa, 
 Dominates Chanaan ; Lebahim went west. 
 With them the Naphtuhim ; Ananim east. 
 The Tenian length and Lybian breadth their own : 
 
 Sem had begotten Eber : Eber got 
 Phaleg and Jectan, these their dwellings had 
 From Messa to the mountainous Sehar : 
 
 Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Thubal, 
 Mosoch, and Thiras, were to Japhet born : 
 Ascenaz, Rephath, and Thogarm, were born 
 To Gomer : all the isles Elisa gain'd 
 
 A A 
 
354 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 For Javan ; Tharshish, Cliettim, Dodonim, 
 Occupy them : then Nemrod boastful built 
 That tower which on the plain of Sennaar 
 Lies ruinously o'erthrown : the regal power 
 Thus he proposed to put beyond the reach 
 Of justice, a perpetuated crime : 
 Men not unwilling, Babel lifts the head, 
 Outward in fortress'd strength, and inward with 
 A most presumptuous mind beyond the clouds, 
 In fancy high above them even to heaven ; 
 But God the whole subverts, confusion sent 
 Scattering- those who lifted so much pride : 
 
 Must God then always strive with man ? again 
 Lapsed criminally away ; Mulijebe ! 
 In all the silence of a desert waste 
 Thy ruins wordlessly, and all the tongues 
 Of Babel, must his second lapse confess : 
 For still the evil Powers of darkness wrought 
 Continually a countervailing change 
 To God's intention through the tertial sphere : 
 No rest nor peace to them, where'er the worlds 
 Terrestrial swung absurd delusions spoilt 
 Divine equations ; their abnormal state 
 Affected in the long descensive scale : 
 All the conflicting forces they could bring 
 Into despiteful action, struck the face 
 Of heaven itself in procreating vice : 
 The worlds were made more earthly ; man in this 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 355 
 
 Distracted planet victimised to death : • 
 Thus presently one family alone, 
 From the Semitic root, to God remains ; 
 Arphaxad, Sala, Heber, Phaleg, Reu, 
 Sarug, and Nachor, Terah who begot 
 The faithful Abrara, true to God remain'd : 
 
 Melchizedek bless'd him, and heaven increased 
 The store of Abraham ; made his name a fear 
 To the surrounding nations : faith to him 
 Was such conviction that his only son 
 Unto the Lord of Hosts was offer' d up : 
 That faith for righteousness accounted stood ; 
 And still faith proves the salt wherewith the earth 
 From the putridity of death is saved : 
 
 But though the promise is to those who trust 
 Always in God Most High, and to their seed, 
 By Egypt his descendants were oppress'd 
 Till Moses plagued it : Jannes then withstood 
 And Jambres, Moses ; but the gods they served, 
 And Pharoah too, sore visitation had : 
 Taphne was dumb, Isis they vainly call, 
 Osiris came not to their aid, wing'd Cneph, 
 Serapis, Thoth, Athos, no answer made, 
 Although the waters unto blood are turn'd. 
 Frogs swarm on all sides round, and lice are bred 
 With grievous swarms of flies throughout the land ; 
 Beasts died, and boil and blain with hail and fire 
 Tormented Egypt ; then the locust came ; 
 A A 2 
 
356 THE CHHISTIAD. 
 
 Darkness that might be felt they suffer'd next ; 
 Next all their first-born died : Jehovah thus 
 Out of the House of bondage Israel brought 
 With signs and wonders ; Joseph's bones restored, 
 Great spoil of gold and silver in their purse : 
 From Goshen out they come to Succoth ; thence 
 To Etham ; Phihairoth ; the sea : the sea 
 Dividing, they pass through in safety while 
 Pharoah, pursuing, in that sea is drown'd : 
 
 Sur ; Mara, of the bitter waters ; next 
 Elim ; then Sin ; they reach : manna rain'd there 
 Down from providing heaven unto their need : 
 In Raphidim Amalec they reverse ; 
 Bad Amalec, the type of him whom God 
 Wars with unto perdition : Sinai next 
 They reach ; there they the Decalogue receive : 
 
 From Pharan come to Taberah, a fire 
 Punish'd their lust; at Kibroth Hattavah 
 The plague was added ; yet, they Canaan saw 
 From Hazzeroth and Pharan ; land of hope 
 Long promised ; full of honey, milk, and wine ! 
 
 These journeyings of Israel well express 
 The stations, progresses, and the retreats, 
 Of the Church militant on earth ; for he 
 Who heaven embattled insolently, fights 
 Our road unto the Canaan of the skies. 
 With all the spirited ferocity 
 Of the infernal world o'er which he reig'ns : 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 357 
 
 From Zin and Kadesh, on mount Hor, beside 
 Edom, arrived, Aaron was gather'd there 
 Unto his fathers : then Arad repents 
 Despite to Israel ; but serpents there 
 Stung pride to pain severely : Oboth next 
 They reach ; next Ije-abarim ; Zared next ; 
 Next Arnon, nigh to Moab, saw their tents : 
 
 Beer, Mattana, Mahaliel, then Banoth, 
 Is found their resting place : Sehon was fought 
 And smitten at Jasa : from Jazer they 
 The Amorites drive out, and Og the king 
 Of Basan slay : Baal-peor inscribe 
 And Midian ; with the kings Evi, Recem, 
 Sur, Rebe, Hur : Balaam with them lies slain : 
 
 Then Moses went from Nebo, to the top 
 Of Phasgo, over Jericho, and died ; 
 Moses the meekest of the sons of men : 
 Passing Jordan to Gilgal, Joshua took 
 Goshen : vale, plain, and mount, to mount Halak : 
 
 Judah succeeding, he in Bezek fought. 
 And took Jerusalem : but Israel then 
 To Baal turn'd, and Ashtoreth ; though Othniel, 
 Ehud, and Shamgar, Deborah, Gideon, 
 Even Abimelech, the shame denied : 
 Toba, Jair, Tola, ruled as Judges next ; 
 And then to Bethlehem-Judah came the love 
 Of Boaz, Ruth, Naomi dear with her : 
 
 Next Jair judged Israel; Jephtha; Ibzannext; 
 
358 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Then Elon ; Abdon ; Samson : to the pate 
 Delilah shore him for a silly love : 
 Eli succeeding', shame upon his sons ! 
 Samuel, whose childhood heard Jehovah caU, 
 Came the last Judge before their first of king's : 
 ■ How Saul was troubled and young David harp'd 
 To all the world is known : Agag was spared 
 By Saul ; and Da'vid wickedly procured 
 Uriah's death ; infatuated men ! 
 Solomon foUow'd them ; who, though he buUt, 
 Aided by Hiram king of Tyre, a house 
 Unto Jehovah, yet to Milcolm, the 
 Abomination of the Ammonites, 
 And Chemosh, Moab's shame, bow'd down the knee ; 
 Even to Moloch down he bow'd the head ; 
 Rehoboam his son was half a king : 
 In Dan and Bethel Jeroboam set. 
 Not Cynocephalus, nor Anubis, 
 But the false bovine idol Egypt loved; 
 Shishak that sin avenged : to these succeed 
 Rehoboam, Nadab, Asa, Joshphat, 
 Baasha, Elah : Nimri that Elah slew : 
 Omri, Ahaz, and Ahaziah, reign ; 
 Jehoram, Joram : then Elisha raised 
 Up from the dead the Shunamite's young son : 
 Jehu ; then Ahaziah reign : to them 
 Athalia succeeds ; Jehoash next ; 
 Then Amaziah j Azariah next ; 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 369 
 
 Next Jeroboam ; Zachariah ; then 
 
 Shallum; Menahem; Pekahiah; and 
 
 Pekah : o'er Judah, Jothan reign'd ; Ahaz ; 
 
 Hosea served Shalmaneser, for then 
 
 The Lord rejected Israel ; they had sinn'd 
 
 Against Him, and the Covenants despised ; 
 
 Idols they worshipp'd as the hosts of heaven ; 
 
 Through lustral fires their children pass'd ; they used 
 
 Dark divinations ; and enchantments sought, 
 
 Selling themselves to evil in God's sight ; 
 
 Babylon and Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, 
 
 And far Sepharvaim, seized and held their place r 
 
 'Gainst Hezekiah great Sennacherib warr'd, 
 But unsuccessfully : Manasseh next ; 
 Next Amon reign'd : Josiah them succeeds ; 
 The idols he brake down, their altars, groves, 
 Tophet, defiled, and bones at Bethel burn'd ; 
 Moreover those who with familiars work'd. 
 The wizards and the Teraphim he crush'd : 
 To king Jehoahaz, Eliakim 
 Succeeds ; by Pharoa-necho he was named : 
 He unto Babylon a captive sent. 
 Then Mattaniah reign'd till Judah, like 
 Israel, was broken down and brought away : 
 
 Full threescore years and ten Jerusalem lay 
 Desolate ; every house and all the walls 
 Were razed, when Cyrus took the precious things 
 Nebuchadnezzar spoilt ; and moved the chiefs 
 
360 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Judaean with the priests and Levites to 
 
 Rebuild the temple of the Lord their God : 
 
 Jeshua the crown resumes ; Jehoiakim 
 
 Wears it ; the had Eliashib succeeds ; 
 
 Judas comes next ; then John j his brother he 
 
 Kill'd in the sacred court : Jaddus reign'd next 
 
 Over a fallen people ; for their sins 
 
 Misraim oppress'd them ; when he fail'd, oppress'd 
 
 The Syrians, till Antiochus profaned 
 
 The earthly sanctuary and home of God : 
 
 Then rose the Maccabees : Aristobulus 
 Wielded the sceptre ; Alexander ; next 
 Salome; Aristobulus; Pompey 
 Then took Jerusalem for Rome, whereon 
 Herod the Edomite arose and reign'd : 
 
 Thus were the Prophets whom Jehovah sent 
 Most righteously avouch'd ; from Moses down 
 To Zephaniah : Asaph, Samuel, 
 Shemiah, Iddo, and Ahijah, preach'd 
 In vain to Israel : Azariah, and 
 Jehu, Hanani, and Elijah, caught 
 Up into heaven, still ineffective, preach'd : 
 Elisha, Joel, Hosea, Amos, 
 Michajah, Obadiah, Habakkuk, 
 Jonah, Isaiah, vainly invoked 
 With Michah, Haggai, and Malachi, 
 Nahum, and Jeremiah, earth to hear : 
 " ! that mine head were waters and my eyes 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 361 
 
 Fountains of tears tLat I, both day and night, 
 Might weep this People ;" all the Prophets cried : 
 This was their refrain ; though Ezekiel saw 
 Cherubic visions ; Zachary also saw ; 
 Others such burden bore as quail'd the heart, 
 And makes the ear to tingle, listening them : 
 
 Elsewhere, mankind was equally corrupt : 
 Assyria wide outstretch'd her conquering arms. 
 North to Armenia ; east unto the Mede 
 And Persian ; unto India reach' d she, 
 Square altars raising to Mithras as god, 
 The great light-giving sun falsely adored : 
 The eastern magi thought in stars they saw 
 Other divinities ; and them bespoke 
 As Peri, Caherman, and Tahmuraz, 
 Ahriman, Oramuz, and Demruth-dive : 
 Chaldea unto these her pillars wrought. 
 Mingled sweet wines, and paid her foolish vows, 
 Diviners warranting the stupid cheat : 
 
 With these abstracted forms were more abstract ; 
 The Succoth-benoth, Nergal, Ashimah, 
 Gilgal, Tartac ; the gods of Sepharvaim : 
 Ninus acknowledged them ; Semiramis ; 
 And Sardanapalus : a rampant lion 
 With mighty eagle wings, their kingdom was ; 
 Arbaces won it : brave Cyaxares 
 With Nabopolassar, enjoy'd it next: 
 
 Then Evil-merodock, Neriglisser, 
 
362 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Laborosoarchad, and Beltezshazzar, 
 
 Babylon overruled : famous is he 
 
 For God's bandwriting seen upon the wall ; 
 
 His countenance changed, tbougbts troubled, all the joints 
 
 Even of his loins were loosen' d, both his knees 
 
 Smiting each other as that Hand he saw. 
 
 The Medians, Persians, Lydians, allied 
 Under Darius, him a raging bear, 
 Three ribs within his teeth, the Prophet paints : 
 All the false gods under great Chosroes rule 
 Met when ^gyptia crouch'd before his feet : 
 
 Then Japetus in younger Ammon sprung : 
 His symbol was a leopard with four heads 
 And four great wings ; these represented Perse, 
 Syrian, Mede, and Grecian ; o'er them all 
 The Macedonian soldier throned himself : 
 His gods were human made ; and some were beasts. 
 Oracularly ambiguous ; Pharmacus 
 Was solemn as the dark Trophonian cave 
 Admitted ; dark Autopsia ; Demiurge : 
 All who approach'd them, liquor-mad were made ; 
 Though him of Rhamnus elevated seem'd : 
 Mobs of Napeans own'd the greater sway 
 Of brutal inclination : yet, the Greek 
 Was a most graceful worship in the mind : 
 Japetus feign'd the Muses ; not the pure 
 And holy maidens upon whom we call ; 
 Far other spring is yours ! another mount 
 
THE CHRI9TIAD. 363 
 
 Than Cytheron, and the Phocean stream : 
 Hesiod and Pindar were by them inspired 
 Theocritus J Euripides; ^schylus; 
 And Aristophanes : the Thalian mask 
 And tragic buskin were for them, not us : 
 Religion ! none like them our sacred task 
 Assist J although the names be at command; 
 And theirs, or none, must grace the lines man-read : 
 
 Then came the Roman to the clang of arms 
 Invincible : no banner Roma own'd, 
 By princesses within their harems wrought 
 In the cool evening, by purling streams. 
 To dulcet symphonies, poetic sounds. 
 And airs of incense paradisic made : 
 His flag was pictured terrible ; a beast 
 Exceeding strong, with iron teeth, by which 
 Devouring he in pieces brake, stamping 
 Beneath his feet the nations ; full ten horns 
 Were his, and the known world before him fell : 
 
 Kings there had been Phoenician ; kings of Rhodes ; 
 Kings on the long seabord : the shepherd-kings, 
 Amenophis distinguish'd : Memnon rear'd 
 The Elephantan fane : Dejoces built 
 Grand Ecbatan his capital ; Phraote, 
 Cyaxares, — Ahasuerus, sire 
 To him who conquer'd Croesus, him succeeds : 
 Croesus to Sardis fled ; but Tomyris, 
 That Lydian of oracles avenged : 
 
364 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Where Ind and Ganges roll, great empires yet 
 Survive the lapse of ages : the Chinese 
 Those idols which Confucius scorn'd adore : 
 Ava adores her ancient idols stUl : 
 Eld history king Evechous records ; 
 Galea, and Crete, and Alba-longa, where 
 Sylvanus ruled : Polities also were 
 From Barbary unto the Guinean gulf; 
 Thence far below the tropic : far beyond 
 The wide Atlantic, where the Lawrence now, 
 The Mississippi, and La Plata, sweep, 
 Nations existed, ruled by Yncan heads 
 Boastful of idol gods ; as boasted high 
 The four chief monarchies that Daniel saw : 
 
 Thus the whole world from unity was gone. 
 And from the knowledge of Almighty God : 
 Philosophy to its meridian height 
 Arrived at Athens, there Democritus 
 Fortuitous concourse of things supposed ; 
 Ignoring Providence to honour chance : 
 At Rome the Grecian sophistry amused 
 Itself with Cicero when, an augur, he 
 Confess'd a providence ; his life was shaped 
 Advantageous to opportunity ; 
 And oft smiled he to think that man could hope 
 Anything from the gods, which he supposed 
 Mere allegorical inventions, or 
 From God whose holy Name had been reveal'd : 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 365 
 
 Order obtain' cHihrough nature j not an atom 
 
 But inly tended to a place ordain'd 
 
 To what appear'd inevitable law ; 
 
 But to suppose a Lawgiver implied 
 
 Some personality so powerful, tbat, 
 
 If he existed, man could never hope 
 
 To comprehend it : common sense preferr'd 
 
 A vague abstraction call'd " The soul of things ; " 
 
 The sheer material Necessity 
 
 Of the philosophers which know no truth 
 
 But fate, and that most atheistic blind ; 
 
 No worth, since merit cannot be supposed 
 
 In creatures of mere circumstance ; no God 
 
 But an inward, indwelling, congruous force ; 
 
 Blind as a beetle, deafer than a post. 
 
 Senseless as stone ; resistless unto deatii 
 
 But generating life within the round 
 
 Of matter ; made unto itself a law ! 
 
 The chalices of Epicurus fiU'd 
 
 With wine of doctrine sensuous as that. 
 
 Carnality in Greece and Rome prevail' d. 
 
 And through the general world : such temples as 
 
 Merely abstracted and superior thought 
 
 Had rear'd in ages past, were ceded then 
 
 To open irreligion; no one could 
 
 The Saturnalian sorcery of sense 
 
 Resist ; Plato took refuge in a dream ; 
 
 Socrates sacrificed ; Pythagoras 
 
366 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Supposed that Ennius had aforetime been 
 As he boldly proposed, a chanticleer : 
 
 Amongst the libertines of famous name 
 Is Aristippus : Draco famous was ; 
 More famous Solon : but what worth is theirs, 
 Consists in their approximation to 
 God's pandects ; promulgated, centuries 
 Before, from Oreb : Kings therein shall find 
 Their copy ; subjects what their duty is ; 
 Senates instruction ; magistrates command ; 
 Witnesses warning : there the jury are 
 Required to verdict truly ; there the judge 
 Is taught a righteous sentence : weddings there 
 Alone are well directed ; matrimony 
 Is order'd ; — o'er his house the husband rules 
 As lord, the wife as mistress duly set : 
 Their first-born are provided ; even the dead 
 Are there provided ; and all orphans brought 
 Unto a heavenly Father : they detect 
 All error, and can make the foolish wise : 
 What history like Genesis ? what book 
 Hath so sublime a proem ? From the cares 
 Of government retreating, unto that 
 The sage of Tadmor turn'd and was renew'd : 
 Here are antiquities and wondrous tales ! 
 The Bible, Book of books ! Galen therein 
 Were exercised, and learned doctors tried j 
 Arithmeticians ; and astronomers : 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 367 
 
 The foolish lying Cretans show'd the tomb 
 
 Of Jove to strangers, Christian liars so 
 
 The Book of Joshua show ; swine rend them all ! 
 
 For what to man is incident, is far 
 
 From God as man is far : his fashions change, 
 
 And vain opinions vary : Newton shows 
 
 A mathematic fact ; but faith and sight 
 
 Are rules opposed, and we the first prefer : 
 
 Those who their conduct govern by the last 
 
 End life as bankrupts ; where was Gibbon's hope ? 
 
 Lost ; where was Voltaire's ? Wit and learning fail j 
 
 Fame, genius, power, all that the world esteems, 
 
 Fail man in the inevitable hour : 
 
 The Word of God remains ; for high, and low ; 
 
 Ign'rance, and erudition : unto all 
 
 The Testament of heaven is life, hope, love. 
 
 And introduction to eternal bliss : 
 
 Mechanics, artists, lessons here may get 
 
 Invaluable ; ignorance spell out 
 
 Celestial wisdom ; covenanting Grace 
 
 Shines line to line ; and precept precept shows 
 
 In dictionary plainness to the eye : 
 
 Not aU the odes through the Olympiads sung. 
 
 Compare with those found there from Zion's hill : 
 
 That is true poetry ! Demosthenes, 
 
 Nor he who both Mopsus and Calcas scorn'd. 
 
 Spoke such orations as therein we read : 
 
 Over Lucretia, Livy acted well ; 
 
368 THE CHRI8TIAD. 
 
 Sanconiatho, Quintius Curtius, 
 Tacitus, Plutarch, Gellius, Juvenal, 
 Nicander, Xenophon, Lactantius, 
 Apollodorus, Lycias, Sallust, 
 Statius, Seneca, Thucydides, 
 SeVrally excellent too as moralists. 
 Historians, patriots ; yet, the praise of men 
 Proposing as their meed, fell short of that 
 Immortal bardic list who all disdain'd 
 That meed as an intoxicating drug. 
 As must the nectar of the gods, and rose 
 Into the height of heaven, inspired beyond 
 The thought of time and the applause of worlds. 
 
 But ! what pen the matter may indite 
 We now approach 1 Though with an angel's tongue 
 I told, Cecilia ! what to me by night. 
 In the still watches, when the world 's asleep. 
 Thou tunest, all my soul entranced to hear. 
 Rapt up, as was the apostle, to the seventh 
 Receptive heaven ; thus though I told and wrote. 
 Dipping this pen in firmamental tints ; 
 Though Eloa divinely held us up 
 Adoring ; 0, how infinitely short 
 Were all our powers to tell what in my heart 
 I feel, and, blessed God Effluent ! know : 
 Now for the golden string aforetime heard 
 In Salem strung to God ; All hail to Him 
 Who, in the flesh, for man's redemption came. 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 369 
 
 Descending from the Sov'reignty on high ! 
 When Adam went outcast of Eden forth, 
 The bruising of his head who spoilt the worlds 
 Was promised ; Christ shall also man restore ; 
 The sceptre of the worlds is only His ! 
 Strike high the lyre ! from David's seed He comes 
 Messias from the heavens ; immaculate down, 
 Our great Deliverer ; our Restorer ; God 
 Incorporate and one with man redeem'd ! 
 
 Strike high the lyre ! thy King, Salem, comes ! 
 Daughter of Zion, comely make thy cheeks 
 With rows of jewels ; golden chains endue 
 Thy stately neck; borders of gold and studs 
 Of silver take, enhancing all thy charms : 
 Spikenard and myrrh is thine, so thou shalt be 
 Even as the cluster' d camphire 'midst the vines 
 Of dear En-gedi : better is His love 
 Than wine ; He saith, " Rise up my love and come 
 Winter is pass'd away, the storm is gone. 
 Flowers appear, birds sing, the turtles coo, 
 Fig-trees green fruit put forth, vines tender gTapes ; 
 Arise my love ! my fair one ! come away ! 
 my sweet dove, hid in the secret place 
 And sacred stairs, thy countenance let me see, 
 And let me hear, let me hear thy voice ! " 
 
 Thus the Lord God of Sabaoth on high 
 So, condescending to His Church on earth, 
 Express'd the yearning which was always His 
 
370 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 To our humanity : what God made whole 
 
 Was altogether broken into sherds, 
 
 Mankind made dust and ashes : through all worlds 
 
 Trine in their order, Lucifer prevail'd 
 
 Continually in evil : as one germ 
 
 Of leaven will ingenerate a lump, 
 
 Such in its nature evil always was ; 
 
 And stUl must be till God th' infection stop : 
 
 No creature could arrest it ; all the Powers 
 
 Of heaven confess'd that only God might cope 
 
 With Luciferian power mankind inbred : 
 
 Man's case, unnatural strange, was far beyond 
 
 All hope of cure from angels ; from the crown 
 
 Of his affected head, so royal bright. 
 
 In the grand central sun, down to the last 
 
 Poor creature-unit of the poorest world, 
 
 'Twas wounds, and bruises, putrefying sores j 
 
 So canc'rous that no medicine but God's 
 
 Water and hyssop could avail mankind : 
 
 And yet, still, such is love Divine, so clear 
 Transpicuous, that through all his pain, man shone 
 Good as God made him : though the robbers left 
 Thee, poor wayfarer ! senseless ; God in man 
 Perceived the life that was immortal still, 
 Though breathless, blacken' d, syncopied away : 
 How we were blacken' d, well knows He who in 
 The flesh, all our infirmities endured ; 
 But yet without the slightest touch of sin : 
 
THE OHHISTIAD. 371 
 
 For when the apostate angels, more and more 
 
 Gain'd upon this creation ; even till 
 
 Predominancy crown' d their insolence 
 
 With such success that the celestial suns 
 
 Themselves were almost promised to their pride, 
 
 And thence, when they were gain'd, the heaven of heavens; 
 
 Such inquisition then Jehovah made 
 
 As only Christ could answer ; nor can man 
 
 Explain the answer which His Godhood gave : 
 
 " Hail Mary and be bless'd ! " then Gabriel cried 
 
 To the immaculate Virgin who should bear 
 
 ShUoh, the Lord of Love and Prince of Peace : 
 
 Unless that God would by the small confound 
 Mightiness, and from undervalued things 
 O'erthrow the Powers of darkness. Why should Christ 
 Pain in incarnate birth and breathe our air ? 
 Or would indeed Jehovah show all worlds 
 That what He made, was excellent beyond 
 All diminution ? all ! including man ; 
 Well might the Psalmist cry " Lord, what is man 
 That Thou of him art mindful ; what his kind 
 That Thou shouldst visit so depi'aved a race ? " 
 Seen in himself, the worms that crawl beneath 
 Our footsteps are less vile since man transgress'd ; 
 But man, within the heavenly light insphered 
 Shines as no angel shines, of God beloved : 
 
 All potent Faith ! when thou my eyes direct'st 
 Heavenward above, the fiilgent Throne on high, 
 B b2 
 
372 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Though blinded, still, God's servitor may glimpse, 
 Dark shining with escess of bright to black ; 
 And though no mortal may the face Divine 
 See and survive, yet, in the mind devout. 
 As Moses apprehended God, by thy 
 Power we do behold Him there encrown'd : 
 Amazing power is thine, improving thus, 
 And strengthening human vision to ascend 
 So high, and that to bear which angels see 
 Oppress'd with too much extacy for words ; 
 But much greater power from faith to us 
 Proceeds when, in the presence of that Throne, 
 Which the archangels serve, we find a child 
 Laid in a manger and believe him God : 
 
 No merely natural mind can this admit 
 As possible ; the fact can never be 
 Mentally comprehended by mankind ; 
 The spiritual discernment which is thine 
 Bless'd Faith ! alone empowers us God to find. 
 Love, and adore, laid up in swaddling clothes : 
 All the conditions of a babe were His 
 Whom heaven acknowledged as the Most High God : 
 It was the Sov'reign pleasure man to save ; 
 And thus the Sov'reign pleasure us redeem'd : 
 Wisdom and might and love, are always one 
 Although they look diversely and appear 
 Antagonistic : God the Son, was Might ; 
 The Father, Wisdom j Love, the Holy Ghost ; 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 373 
 
 But God the Son a double measure hath : 
 
 Into existence, Wisdom brought the heavens 
 
 Centred in knowledge ; Might re-order'd worlds, 
 
 And, in its might, incarnate beings made 
 
 Diverse from angels ; these. Almighty Love 
 
 Would fain to their estate of good recall : 
 
 How those whom Knowledge claim'd rebell'd, still seem'd 
 
 Too gross for our belief had man not fall'n ; 
 
 And that Omniscience should produce such things 
 
 As disappointed, spited, God supreme, 
 
 Is equally amazing ; wonder'd more 
 
 Both man and angel that the Lord of Life 
 
 Should unto death submit, and to Himself 
 
 Become the offering of mortal sin : 
 
 That God the Father, God the Blessed Son, 
 
 And God the Holy Ghost, should act diverse 
 
 And be at unity even in this 
 
 Atoning mercy and exceeding grace. 
 
 Is equally mysterious to mankind : 
 
 God, unto God is offer'd ; God condemns. 
 
 Yet justifies our sinning race ; how bless' d, 
 
 However lowly. Faith ! are all who know. 
 
 And, knowing, comprehend the saving facts : 
 
 The world which knows not faith smiles scorn ; hut these 
 Miraculous facts are truly witnessed ; 
 The devils, though they tremble, them believe : 
 Lucifer when the Lord of worlds came down 
 Incarnate man, precipitately retires : 
 
374 THE CHRI8TIAD. 
 
 Since mind contested, not in arms but thought 
 God's power, and no intelligence increate 
 Equall'd the great Archgerent's, Lucifer 
 Easily made the prophets aU a prey ; 
 Thus his dark kingdom was extended far 
 Beyond the reach of angels ; every world 
 Terrestrial invaded and almost 
 Fallen to him from God their Lord on high : 
 Successful in defiance and in gain, 
 The incarnation of the Heavenly King 
 Such vast astonishment to him compeU'd 
 That all his certain knowledge was at fault, 
 His expectation struck, and hope surprised : 
 God, born of woman ! In a manger, God ! 
 God, in the flesh ! God, to these worlds come down 
 From His exceeding glory ! Could God have 
 A mother ? Could ungenerated God 
 Be thus ingenerated ? Could God be 
 Verily man ? Had God the lungs to breathe 
 This earthly air, His senses bow'd to pain ? 
 Could God the agony mortalian feel, 
 And suffer ? Could God one become with man ? 
 The Serpent thus reflecting, speechless stood ; 
 His eyes like fire, considering that child : 
 Wond'rous In-being ! whom archangels laud 
 With psaltery the highest ; though babe-like 
 And helpless as an infant, when that Snake 
 Fix'd his red eyes and bristled all his fangs 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 875 
 
 Of anguish for Thee, Mind, as far ahove 
 His mind as Good still above E^dl towers, 
 Confi'onting met them with a look that the 
 Tremendous frown of God could not exceed 
 In mightiness : as down the blackest cloud. 
 Against a perpendicular mountain come, 
 Breaks, thund'ring, lightning; Lucifer, confused, 
 Breaks down intolerably fused ; though hurt 
 Was not the present mission of our Lord : 
 He comes to suffer ; yea, the Lord of Might ! 
 But Godhood unwithstood must aye remain ; 
 And arrogance before that Presence quail : 
 This of necessity must be, however 
 Lowly was Christ ; the man-of-Sorrows born, 
 And intimate with the profoundest grief : 
 
 Sudden the check as strong, before that Child 
 The Anarchist is took forceful a-back : 
 Before our father Adam, he withdrew 
 Dishonour'd but unfeeling ; now before 
 The second Adam inwardly groans he 
 With an immedicable wound : the shock 
 Made Satan shudder to confusive pride : 
 The Lamb of God was, yet, the Lion of 
 The tribe of Judah ; in his path, man-God 
 Was unexpected found ; not to contest 
 The Lion which goes roaring round all worlds 
 Seeking whom he may cruelly devour. 
 But an atonement for mankind to make 
 
376 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 By freely offering up His sinless soul 
 
 In satisfaction : the fell Prince of Hell, 
 
 More capable than man, though still unable 
 
 To fathom the unfathomable depths 
 
 Of the eternal wisdom ; feeling that 
 
 The tide of his advance was at its height, 
 
 Nay, on the turn soon as high God appear'd ; 
 
 In thought already finds himself in Hades : 
 
 Dispirited he was not, but the sight 
 
 Of overruling Power made all his power. 
 
 Which look'd so shoreless, shrink and curdle back 
 
 Unto the bottoms whence seafull it came : 
 
 Exultant Pride, slunk in ; the stricken fiend 
 
 Quivers in all his wings; confessing thus 
 
 The august might and majesty of that Child : 
 
 The road from his infernal realm to these 
 
 Worlds of terrestrial daylight beaten was ; 
 
 The Gates below their dreadful owner knew. 
 
 As, sole, alone, across the wild of space. 
 
 Thither, like a proud Turcoman retired 
 
 Before the Christian power, th' Archgerent pass'd : 
 
 Disheart'ning was the thought what must be told ; 
 
 If tell he must, of this Advent Divine : 
 
 Elation mark'd his manifestoes since 
 
 Mankind fail'd their allegiance, but, if God 
 
 Eeclaim'd the worlds which God Himself design'd ; 
 
 Though sued in such odd way, the title might, 
 
 It must ! to Heaven revert if God this were : 
 
THE CHBISTIAD. 377 
 
 Rage seized him that to think ; it swells his cheeks, 
 
 His step unsteadies, cramps to torture all 
 
 The wings of web and feather on his back S 
 
 To Night and the eternal Death he hastes ; 
 
 Hurrying through the innumerable crowd 
 
 Which throng the passage : Hades that rage observed, 
 
 And, rising to a storm, snatch'd myriads up ; 
 
 Soon to discharge them on the burning lake : 
 
 So locusts wrinkle all the vex'd Red Sea, 
 
 Driven before the wind ; so Aquilon, 
 
 Rocks, pines, oaks, forests, launch'd on polar waves : 
 
 Over them all his frenzied eyeballs roll 
 
 Until the Damn'd substantially are fired : 
 
 Night, actual white for fear before him stands, 
 
 Harrow'd and rooted : outer Darkness fled ; 
 
 Great spectres holding on its warty legs ; 
 
 Like lupes upon a lion that cannot 
 
 Shake off the famish'd creatures ; or like fiends 
 
 Upon a lost, emaciated, soul : 
 
 Terror, retractile every claw draws in. 
 
 What could it mean ? What indicated looks 
 Like those ? Was Lucifer lost quite ? Was then 
 The King of Hell dishonour'd? Was he weak 
 Who sway'd an emperor's rank ; and sway'd the worlds 
 Terrestrial, throiigh all their length and breadth ? 
 Rage but consists in weakness or in shame ; 
 That sphere is then, Devil, not thy own. 
 Or thou to hell art ignominious driven ! 
 
378 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Thus reason all the Damn'd ; to suffering brought 
 
 And splinter'd by his fury : Devildom, 
 
 What flesh, or bone, or aught it had, comes out 
 
 Electrum-like ; garish ; mouth-froth'd to see 
 
 What all its fires intensify beyond 
 
 The calculation and the thought of death : 
 
 From all the sparry hollows Woe comes up ; 
 
 Like a dread beast upon the smell of blood 
 
 Bellowing, so unbearable all this 
 
 To Woe appear'd : hell was upset ; its void 
 
 Fill'd with all wonder ; all its spaces black 
 
 With horror unto an amazing fear : 
 
 Never before was that bad spirit so 
 Entirely self-forgotten ; though his pride 
 Submission thought not even in despair : 
 Did he despair then who had straiten'd Heaven 
 And o'er-grieved God by so immense a loss ? 
 Was there finality to a Prince like him, 
 Who, though in arms he lost, could fail not in, 
 But always gain'd, the Victories of Mind j 
 Unintermitting hate, revenge, his own ! 
 His high-throned seat th' Archgerent pridefiil takes ; 
 Gnashing his teeth for pride to think that he. 
 The Author of revolt, had not success 
 Achieved ; triumphant over God and Pate : 
 His gods translate the looks which he permits 
 Thus far to state the feelings of his mind ; 
 And further they perceive that dire events 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 379 
 
 Were threaten'd unto them, although their King 
 Spoke of no danger, danger only look'd. 
 
 While the rebellious Powers in suspense 
 Hang ; with such stretch of wing as never before 
 Was theirs, the spirits who gain'd seats and names 
 Outside th' infernal re&lm among our worlds, 
 Return from all their thrones terrestrial with 
 The tidings Lucifer had not confess'd : 
 The Son of God into the worlds was come ! 
 Ubiquitous in all, as each could take 
 And sev'rally required ; the whole to claim ! 
 
 Incredible it seem'd ; incredulous 
 Were all the Powers of Darkness, but they saw 
 Assent upon the wordless lip of him 
 Who these preceded ominously pale 
 And burning with ungovernable rage : 
 And still he speaks not : then a Terror rose, 
 Dim from infinitude of size, and went 
 Forth, like the giant Jatmund, with a horn 
 So loud, though crack' d, that hell was blacker turn'd. 
 As if with instant death, that horn to hear : 
 The towers of hell did reel and, leaning o'er, 
 Like Carisenda for the moment look'd 
 When that great Terror told how God was come 
 Their Pandemonium to overthrow : 
 
 Was Pandemonium then so much admired 
 That they should reck as dark the day when God 
 All its foundations might uproot ? Where then 
 
380 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Was any place on which their foot might rest 
 As here it rested ? though with dreadful pains : 
 Dreadful was Hades ; but that a Statedom was, 
 Preservative of forms and means to them 
 Past value : when misfortune overtakes 
 Man or the angels, though the first be forced 
 To haunt another's stairs, and angels sink 
 To Tophet, worse even than that may be : 
 
 I also mounted stairs that were not mine j 
 As mounted once that exUe bard whose head 
 Was priced in money as a traitor : but 
 We knew that whom the Lord doth chasten these 
 He loves and will restore eventually : 
 Who when the foxes had their holes, and owls 
 Their nests, could find no place for His poor head. 
 Afflicted us not willingly : the friend 
 Who voluntary swore his heart to us. 
 Blasphemed our name and pierced our open side ; 
 Why did we put our trust in man ? when God, 
 Although long suffering, is a jealous God ; 
 And, knowing what flesh is, will have us know 
 That the best men will prove but broken reeds 
 To those whom Fortune and the World forsakes : 
 But Ventidius, though thy love was false 
 Fleeting and perjured, beauteous was its show; 
 And more to be desired than is the blank 
 Name which from out my book of life is gone : 
 But thus the Lord His dearest children scourged. 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 381 
 
 As with a whip of scorpions ; us chastised 
 With a most heavy hand, that we like Him 
 Might be in all things j pierced and cracified : 
 
 Amen, so let it be : these for our faults 
 May come in expiation : they shall be 
 Good for our peace ; and God's salvation comes, 
 As from a father to his children dear : 
 This bless'd assurance of His love to man 
 The fallen angels want ; that wanting, what, 
 what must be the desperation theirs ? 
 Fear overtook them depravated ; hell 
 Surged again to all the woes of fear. 
 Thinking primordial Vengeance close at hand 
 Bent to destroy destruction, hell, and all : 
 
 Typhon holds up ten heads to hear what they 
 Require from Typhon : all their thrones had room 
 Within that kingly hall, its spacious vast 
 Was well protected by masonic strength ; 
 Their walls are architecturally design' d 
 As everlasting, but fortific strength 
 Required all such additions as remain 
 Possible to the threaten'd deities : 
 If God to the terrestrial concave came 
 From His exceeding glory. What prevents 
 His rushing to the great eternal blaze ? 
 Fortify hell amain ! add unto what 
 Is fortified as if that weakness were ; 
 Nine times add thereunto ! to that ten more ! 
 
382 THE CHR19TIAD. 
 
 The reprobated spirits thus received 
 The great terrestrial news ; thus they concert 
 Resistance to the newborn Power on earth : 
 From God, th' administration of those worlds 
 They ravish'd ; hell, if not those worlds, they keep ! 
 The worlds were drown'd in anger, but mankind 
 Return'd to Lucifer spontaneously, 
 Even in the spot where still Jehovah kept 
 His worship most miraculously alive ; 
 There patriarchs and prophets lived and died 
 Martyrs to what mankind supposed a lie ; 
 All so inexplicable was their shibboleth : 
 Yes, even there disparagement was put 
 Both on the prophets and the Throne they served ; 
 Idols erected in God's holy sight : 
 And not a few amongst those prophets fell 
 To the seductions of infernal lies ; 
 Witness the dotard whom the lion slew ; 
 And witness Jonah ; flying from His sight, 
 When hell itself from God no c'overing finds ; 
 Samson repented gifts and graces lost 
 Within a harlot's lap ; in Gaza bound 
 Sightless J the sport of all his enemies : 
 But He, at last ! was come ; by them foretold 
 With such an iteration that they raved 
 Lunatic-like : He came ! incarnate Flesh ! 
 And jeopardized all their usurped sway ! 
 Was it to be supposed, if God indeed 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 383 
 
 Into these worlds were come, that He arrived 
 
 For any other end but to resume 
 
 The rights which they had mastered? If God came 
 
 Without the circumstantial pomp of State, 
 
 Did pompous circumstance advantage Him 
 
 Who in the hollow of His hand-like power 
 
 Held worlds, suns, stars, and heaven, as light in weight ? 
 
 Above all height, what height could add to God ? 
 
 What lowliness degrade Almighty power ! 
 
 No depth detracted from the Majesty 
 
 Eternal, Infinite, Omnipotent ; 
 
 No altitude enhanced the Power of Powers : 
 
 Thus reason'd they ; obvious these appear'd 
 To reason and reflection : then the sense 
 Of judgment unto indignation, from 
 The Lord proceeding, on those rebels came : 
 But at such disadvantage only as 
 Could not be help'd, should He o'ertake the gods ; 
 Aggressive bent for ever against Him : 
 His most particular workmanship, mankind. 
 Demonstrated what spirit they were of; 
 The gods that universe to hell haled down, 
 God they would mock and curse from all its depth ; 
 
 " Anathema maranatha on God ! " 
 Then the arch- Anarch cried when all his walls 
 He saw quintupularly strong ; to that 
 His chiefest spirits shout aloud, " Amen ! " 
 Death cries " Amen ! " with a sardonic grin ; 
 
384 THE CHHISTIAD. 
 
 All the blue fires beat back when that they hear : 
 
 " Witness ye fang'd but foodless, famishing', things, 
 
 Gedim ; all that inhabit in the pit ; " 
 
 Adramelec then cries, " no grief is mine 
 
 For this compulsive state so long as God 
 
 Is grieved by every creature that he made : 
 
 All the terrestrial rivers and the winds 
 
 With human blood were thicken'd and corrupt ; 
 
 All airs upreek to heaven ; we are revenged !" 
 
 Sore macerated shape ! thy soul all o'er 
 
 Was one continual wound, like these bad words. 
 
 " Men for our weapons, the eternal strife 
 We wage ! " cried Moloch : " though to phantoms worn 
 And God the quiver of his wrath expend. 
 The deities are avenged ! We suffer, but 
 God suff 'reth still no less from us in turn : 
 Although more dismal elements afflict 
 His enemies, in appearance, sense is stUl 
 Less sensitive than mind ; and we torment 
 With other pains more terrible than fire.'' 
 
 " When from the pitch of heaven," Apollyon cried, 
 " We fell in intermingled horror down ; 
 And when upon a more disastrous day 
 Such metamorphosis upon us came 
 As consternation wrought ; our mind remain'd 
 Guiltless of all abasement unto fate : 
 No god repented what was worthy gods ; 
 Determination, firm consistency, 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 385 
 
 And persevering boldness to the end : 
 
 Who fled before those thunders were compell'd." 
 
 His voice ten thousands back ; horrid iu look, 
 Their faces green and livid ; Ugoline 
 De Gherardeschi with his starving sons, 
 Look'd not like that though Ruggieri gleer'd 
 Upon them in the dungeon of their death ; 
 Fucci pursued by Cacus not so wan : 
 Ghastly turn they on Lucifer, and shake 
 Horrid to hear what Empery would do : 
 Up rises he as never before rose up. 
 Nor since, the dreadful Might that challenged God : 
 On his stupendous throne the Anarch towers. 
 As if hell's roof with calculating force 
 He rent that God His enemy should hear : 
 Some spectre which none saw but only he. 
 An unappealable expression drove 
 Out from that dreadful sight of pride ; the leaved 
 Portals of bell upon their iron swung 
 Back with hell-quaking sound : " Who shut them opes 
 Our royal doors " cried he ; " Jehovah ! come 
 And take the Kingdom where no harps are strung. 
 But thoughts all discomposed and desperate 
 Against thy tyranny of power and reign." 
 
 Thus, vauntful ever, Lucifer began : 
 If he the hells as king o'erruled, what else 
 But vaunt consisted with his pomp of place ? 
 Much had he vaunted ; more was still required, 
 c c 
 
386 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Ever the more for such occasion as 
 His dogged pride imperiously demands 
 When instruments are wanted : these must be 
 Whetted and sharpen'd ; only thus could he 
 Their blunted edge unto his purpose bring : 
 What was that purpose ? Could he still expect 
 Utility of services from those 
 Whom he disdain'd as altogether used ; 
 Used up to impotence beyond his own ? 
 His own ! was he then impotent ? forbid 
 That damn'd admission — the terrestrial sphere 
 And hell throughout their vast o'erruled by him ! 
 Yet what was the infernal realm hut woe ; 
 Unsought, unwish'd for, forced and bound on him ? 
 And why was he retreated from the worlds 
 Which had indeed almost belong'd to him ? 
 Why was he there in horror ? Why had he 
 Sought this communication with the Powers 
 Of Darkness ? What had he to do in Hades 
 When God was in the worlds ? Why boasted he 
 While he did nothing ? Desperation shows, 
 Not hope but demonstrates despair of what 
 Is truly hope though unto chance it clings : 
 His doors were flung wide open ; so a man 
 Bareth his bosom to the coming knife, 
 Dependent only on the merest chance : 
 What chance was his ? If God, beyond His power 
 As God addition took ; though human life. 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 387 
 
 Seen in itself, before Him vileness stands, 
 That nature never j&om the Godhead could 
 Detract ; might it not strengthen 1 God could not 
 Be more uplifted in the height Divine, 
 Omnipotential ; but as God-and-man 
 In one conjunctive person, Lucifer 
 Might feel the more efifectuaUy what power 
 Belong'd unto the first and what pertain'd 
 Unto the second nature thus endued : 
 No emanation lessen'd God Most High ; 
 But immanation might assuredly 
 Add, not to Godhead, but the means whereby 
 Almightiness its purposes fulfiU'd : 
 Not to compare but only show how this 
 Is certainly effected, when the sons 
 Of God in their superior nature took 
 Women unto themselves, our earthly tribe 
 Was lifted up to its extremest height ; 
 Nor was the finer blood diminish' d, save 
 As lust diminishes mankind in mind ; 
 Had their embraces not stupraceous been 
 But proper, both the species were improved ; 
 The lower raised, the higher gratified 
 In raising ; raising thus, delighted made : 
 Evil and good, conversely, work to one 
 Certain effect ; and hence the consequence 
 To man and angel : hideous monsters, man. 
 Against the bent of nature, might beget 
 cc 2 
 
388 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 In those Titanic times before the flood ; 
 And from the lust of angels, devils came 
 Equally hideous ; parallel'd in kind : 
 There be who will deny to man such power 
 Procreative ; and to the gods deny 
 The personalities herein affirm'd : 
 Physiologic Truth the mule admits ; 
 And metaphysic search discerneth imps 
 And devils past all thought and horror here : 
 If Vice could these enact, Goodness might act 
 Equally, or beyond Satanic force : 
 God, veritable God and yet God-man 
 Conjoint inseparably ; mix'd as one ; 
 Not by admixture spoilt but the reverse ; 
 Was the consummate mystery to Hell : 
 Divided they must be ; yet no division 
 Could any find in God : Jehovah, One, 
 Before all ages. One Himself declared ; 
 Yet God Jehovah was also the Son 
 In unity ; eliminated from 
 But centred in Jehovah ; God the Son 
 Humanity took on, essential God ; 
 Another person was the Holy Ghost; 
 Yet all these Three were necessarily One, 
 Humanity absorb'd and yet distinct : 
 
 These choking facts unto the fallen Powers 
 Were rendered sensible in a striking mode 
 By the distracted Gerent : Must they then 
 
THE CHRtSTIAD. 389 
 
 Lose all their worldly pleasaunces ? their shrines 
 
 And altars through the worlds, all overthrown 
 
 By the bold-bruited but protested Name : 
 
 " Bring' all the imprecating furies down 
 
 Upon the Despot, gods ! Death, Hell, amain !" 
 
 He cried, all murmurs growling round about : 
 
 As if Lui-shin, the spirit that commands 
 
 Low thunder, were amongst the rebels there 
 
 Agreeing with them : but the mind of gods. 
 
 In common with man's mind, hath laws imposed 
 
 Upon its action : Lucifer could not. 
 
 Bent though he was, both Death and Hell at once 
 
 Compel on the Eedeemer : Death though grown 
 
 Larger and lustier with the errand, fell 
 
 Back from his inflamed boldness Christ to see j 
 
 Gleering askant upon the Lord of Life : 
 
 Against the Holy child what Hell could do 
 
 Was done, successfully ; then Rachel mourn' d, 
 
 Great lamentation all through Rama heard 
 
 Because fell Herod hunting for His life. 
 
 Amongst her children, put them to the sword ^ 
 
 To Egypt, Joseph with our Shiloh fled ; 
 
 A toilsome and most anxious flight for thee 
 
 Virgin-mother ! but thy Blessed babe 
 
 The wise men of the east their ofierings brought ; 
 
 And heavenly hosts to Him their praises sung — 
 
 " Glory to God on high ; peace, worlds ! good will 
 
 Unto the human race Messiah brings." 
 
390 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 thou who standest in the Presence, first, 
 Blest Gabriel ! what ecstatic joy was thine, 
 God-sent to Nazareth, when Mary heard 
 Thy rapturous approach of mind and wing ; 
 And bless'd Mary ! highly-favour'd maid, 
 Blessed art thou above all women ; all 
 Tie Generations Mary shall confess 
 The chosen handmaid of the Lord Most High : 
 " Hail, highly favour'd ! " Gabriel cried ; " the Lord 
 Is with thee ; among women thou art bless'd ; 
 Favour thou hast with God, the Holy Ghost 
 Shall come upon thee, and the Power of God 
 Most High shall overshadow thee, all hail !" 
 Thy soul was pierced right through ; but Jesus sits, 
 Son of the Highest, throned Eternal King ; 
 Of His great kingdom there no end shall be. 
 
 Then the divine Similitude, the express 
 Glory of God, call'd by Jehovah up 
 From Egypt, into Galilee returns ; 
 There subject to His parents in the flesh 
 For our example, see the imaged God : 
 Personal Image of the Father, Christ 
 FulfiU'd all the Commandments as He grew 
 In stature and in wisdom from childhood 
 Up to the grace mature of sinless man : 
 Doctors His understanding praise beyond 
 All the laudations usually bestow'd. 
 When in the Temple, twelve years old, He ask'd 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 391 
 
 And tax'd their age to learn omniscient God : 
 No sophistry so sharp that it could find 
 Reception in His knowledge ; subtlety 
 Gould never take that knowledge unaware : 
 Ingenious frauds of argument to Him 
 Were patent and detected at the time : 
 As from the vortex of a hellish rage 
 The Child was saved, equally from the toils 
 Of cunning He escaped ; smiling to see 
 Snares made for men apparent to a boy : 
 
 Well might the Holy Spirit down from heaven 
 Descend in likeness of a dove to grace 
 Our Lord's baptism when unto John He came : 
 The Word made Flesh dwelt among men as Man, 
 Full of both grace and truth : as man came He, 
 The Lamb of God which took away our sin, 
 The faultless Lamb of God to be baptized : 
 All righteousness by Jesus was fulfiU'd 
 As it became Him ; therefore 't was allow'd ; 
 A voice from heaven declaring God well pleased : 
 
 Then Lucifer foU'd thus so far, approach'd 
 God as that Power approaches : once before 
 In pride and confidence he challenged God 
 For Job before all angels ; God shall now, 
 Even for Christ, be challenged and assay'd : 
 Into the Wilderness patient comes He, 
 There to be tempted as mankind might be : 
 If but once fallen, to rise no more for ever, 
 
392 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Thought then the Anarch ; all obnoxious to 
 
 My various temptations, now prevail ! 
 
 Or never from this hour henceforth pretend 
 
 The Luciferian might, this creature saved : 
 
 Man is not God, though man in God be found, 
 
 ! for the vulnerable part which gave 
 
 Quick entrance unto the insidious art 
 
 So eminently on mankind approved : 
 
 Test God as man and triumph ! or be nought : 
 
 His eyes downcast upon the earth. His hands 
 Devoutly o'er that sinless bosom cross' d. 
 The Prince of Patience in his presence stands 
 Who the unpardonable sin commits : 
 No otherwise replied our Lord to the 
 Bold questions put by the audacious king : 
 Towering of head, squared-up of chest, his eye 
 Concentrating ten lightnings, Lucifer 
 Steadily views, unmoved, unfearing, proud, 
 The suffering Son of God : our little day 
 And night only as moments, forty such 
 The Serpent spends ; trying what famine might 
 Induce in our dear Saviour, human made : 
 
 Muse ! when our mother Eve was sore distress'd, 
 For her a pearly myrrhine cup we found 
 And fiU'd it with nepenthe ; better far 
 Than moly or what Helena received ; 
 He who abundant made these worlds on worlds 
 In human nature wanted ; Was it then 
 
THE CHKISTIAD. 393 
 
 Aught separate from God ? Man was not God, 
 
 Or want he could not ; was this famish'd soul 
 
 Indeed the High, Exceeding Lord of Hosts, 
 
 Monarch of Might, and the Supreme of Kings ? 
 
 " Impossible ! " the Tempter thought and cried ; 
 
 " If God thou art? from out these stones bring bread :" 
 
 Profligate prince, darest thou suggest a lie. 
 Not to poor silly Eve but unto God 
 All-seeing and All-knowing ! Jesus said, 
 " Not only is the bread of wheat required 
 For man, but faith, trust, hope, and love, in God :" 
 That Christ supported when the former faU'd ; 
 And well knew Christ in whom His trust was placed : 
 
 The infatuated Fiend girded to have 
 At length an answer to his craving void ; 
 And in his recklessness did not remark 
 All the rebuke and confidence it framed : 
 More palpable to the unnourish'd, but 
 Sustaining, Jesus, Infamy appears ; 
 " If God thou art, how uncomplaining, weak. 
 Contemptible, ridiculous. Thy state ; 
 Scarcely seems God alive ; take, Death ! thy prey ; 
 Humanity to Him hath fatal proved :" 
 
 Demonic prodigies mope round about. 
 And serpent-spirits ; for those heavenly eyes 
 Waiting as waited the fell Anarchist : 
 Meekness to them was only shame supposed. 
 Deserving all that heel of scorn with which 
 
394 THE CHKISTIAD. 
 
 The Proud was ready therewithal to stamp 
 Ruth, pity, to annihilation down, 
 Lord o'er the King of Kings and Victories : 
 Trails the Undying Worm wistful along ; 
 Death looks as wistful ; dread in all the looks 
 Continually sent against the pure 
 And holy Son of God with man injoin'd : 
 Dread is their doing ; ganglionian stings 
 They trebly tip with poison for His life ; 
 But Death falls paralyzed away from Christ, 
 His time was not then come : damp awe is ours 
 Relating how the Worm of Fear attempts 
 Divinity ; but he was flaccid made, 
 Unstrung, prostrated, at the mere attempt : 
 When they somewhat revive, both unto hell 
 With renovated horror spanking go ; 
 Their rotting limbs left frequent on the way. 
 
 If in such pain and so reduced a state 
 Our Saviour invulnerable remain' d. 
 Let not the desert shades but giddy height 
 Attest that Lucifer was undespair'd ; 
 The rankest expectation still his own : 
 Upon a pinnacle the Lord is set ; 
 What mortal could that pointed space retain, 
 Even when strongest nerved ? " Thyself cast down," 
 Suggested the Deceiver ; " in their charge 
 God's angels have Thee safe from every hurt :" 
 
 Jesus replies, " It is forbidden thee. 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 395 
 
 The Lord thy God to counsel, or advise." 
 
 If depth nor height of earthliness could bring 
 The man to folly, no suggestion win 
 Messias from the course of suff'ring which 
 So voluntarily for us He chose ; 
 If God could not be starved His mighty power 
 There to assert, nor anger'd to put forth 
 Its demonstration, what remain'd to try ? 
 'T is hopeless all ; and yet the Tempter takes 
 Our Lord where all the worlds on worlds are seen 
 Through all the constellation'd brightness theirs : 
 The magnitude to heaven was small, but God 
 In-mann'd might all their brightness still admire : 
 "These are our own !" cried he, "but I will have 
 A partner in my glory if thou fall'st 
 Down worshipping before me in this place :" 
 Confess the Anarchist Lord of the worlds 
 Made by Himself, who came for their relief 
 From the infernal Powers ; who would arrest 
 Their too successful art, and once more arming 
 The heavenly hosts would end both him and them ! 
 The Son of God submitted to his doubt 
 Who knew not God, or never were the heavens 
 Seduced from the allegiance to Him due j 
 And Jesus show'd the rebel that, in God, 
 Mankind against the ills of life and frowns 
 Of a capricious fortune were secure : 
 The obvious ordinance that God should not 
 
396 
 
 THE CHHISTIAD. 
 
 Be tempted nor provoked, Christ also show'd 
 
 Passionlessly to him : as passionless, 
 
 But not the less eiFective, Jesus now 
 
 In briefly saying " Get thee, Satan, hence," 
 
 Show'd that his influence o'er the trinal worlds 
 
 Drew even then to the determined end : 
 
 " Hence get thee Satan j" not from out the sight 
 
 Of God made angry, but from forth the worlds 
 
 Which appertain, not unto thee but to 
 
 The Lord whom angels worshipfully serve : 
 
 Satan no more persists when that he heard : 
 If he were, not admonish'd but rebuked ; 
 If not rebuked directly, so bespoken 
 That truth to fear or apprehension call'd ; 
 If an enduring God submitted to 
 His hateful presence and absurd pretence. 
 Such the submission was that Christ prevail'd 
 Over the Lord of Blasphemy and Pride : 
 Over him morally prevail'd Christ, man; 
 Calmly denying his assumptions ; calm 
 Resisting his delusions ; and as calm 
 Declining all the ofiers that he made : 
 
 Well it behoved our Blessed Lord on earth 
 Thus to fulfil all righteousness, and show 
 The competential power of sinless man 
 To do whatever was by God required : 
 Adam was fallen ; but our second Adam 
 In his integrity was perfect found : 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 The law Divine he honourable made 
 
 By a divine obedience thereunto ; 
 
 That it was reasonable, Christ left no doubt, 
 
 Dashing the hopes of Satan, Sin, and Hell. 
 
 Not in obedience to our Lord's command 
 Lucifer disappears ; with haggard looks 
 And more unsteadied wing away pass'd he 
 In feelings so diverse that all his mind 
 Seem'd chaos and confusion worse tlian death : 
 The Power unmatchable was found at last ; 
 Such is the force of meekness over rage : 
 And ! from heaven bright angels come where his 
 Dark person blear'd the wilderness ; to Christ 
 Minist'ring, sacred Muse ! what we desired 
 But dared not offer from our feeling hearts 
 Unto the suffering Son of God the Lord, 
 Jehovah, throned the Majesty on high : 
 
 Then Jesus rose refresh'd ; and ye Heavens 
 And Earth give ear unto His gracious words. 
 For they as rain in spring and dew distill'd 
 Upon the flowers, do come ; as showers upon 
 The tender grass, so gratefully they fall : 
 Against the floods of time, our Hock He stands : 
 Perfect to us are all His loving works ; 
 Unto the wicked they are judgment ; truth 
 To all J most just and right is God our Lord : 
 The days of old remember ; all the years 
 Of every generation these assure : 
 
 397 
 
398 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Our fathers and the elders show how God 
 Found us all wandering in the desert, call'd 
 The Howling Wilderness, and raised us up ; 
 The apple of His eye to Christ are we : 
 Even as the eagle fluttereth o'er his young 
 Bearing them on the wing, our Saviour brought 
 His people to the increase of the fields ; 
 Oil, honey, butter, milk of sheep, fat lambs. 
 Are, in a spiritual sense, our own : 
 Thus Jesus taught us wondrously, and learn'd 
 Man beyond common learning : line on line 
 And precept upon precept God inscribed. 
 Urging them on us from the shining stars : 
 The lessons so sublimely writ on high. 
 Through total nature also man might spell : 
 Who unto God is like, Raphael ! amongst 
 The paling glories of the gods ? they fall 
 Adoring humbly at Jehovah's feet : 
 The Covenant He made with man is kept 
 In everlasting goodness : God His Son 
 Into the worlds hath sent, that truth to teach 
 Which was misconstrued ; the predicted Son, 
 The Lord of Grace and Goodness unto us : 
 With signs also He comes and wonders great ; 
 The sick by Him are heal'd, lepers are cleansed. 
 Blind men their sight regain, the deaf can hear, 
 Lamigers walk erect, their limbs restored : 
 By Him the dead again to life are raised, 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 399 
 
 Pride is deposed from usurpated seats, 
 And lowly Merit to its place brought up : 
 
 Divine Instructor ! on Thy lips we hang : 
 " Bless'd are the poor in spirit " Jesus cried, 
 " Theirs is the kingdom of my Father's heaven : 
 Blessed are they who mourn ; their tears I keep. 
 And I will comfort every tear they shed : 
 Most blessed are the meek ; the worlds shall be 
 Inherited by unresisting saints : 
 Who thirst and hunger do for righteousness, 
 All their desires the God of Grace shall fill : 
 Ye merciful, be blessed ! you from God 
 Mercy in fuU fruition shall receive ; 
 The pure in heart with you are doubly bless'd ; 
 The heavenly light you.both shall surely see : 
 Peacemakers are the dearest sons of Grace ; 
 And bless'd are they whom God His children calls : 
 Those who for righteousness are wrong'd, shall have 
 All holy joy within the heavenly place : 
 If for Christ's sake they persecute His saints. 
 Revile them and injuriously detract. 
 Then blessed are those saints ; the servant is 
 Not, surely, that above which Christ his Lord 
 Dehghted to endure ; let them be glad ; 
 So all the prophets persecuted were ; 
 But in God's sight the saints and prophets are 
 The salt of savour to and light of worlds ; 
 Both so should taste and shine that all mankind, 
 
400 
 
 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Beholding their g-ood works must glorify 
 Jehovah who in heavenly light reigns high : 
 His law is absolute ; both heaven and earth 
 Shall vanish ere one jot or tittle thence 
 Can be deducted j all must be fulfill'd ; 
 True greatness lies not, as the scribes suppose 
 And Pharisees, in letter but in fact 
 And spirit ; both are consecrated there : 
 Obey the total Law, and sin no more 
 Against thy fellow-man than God Most High : 
 Though he continually offend thee, still 
 Thy brother stUl forgive as God forgives 
 Our greater failing : adversaries shun ; 
 Keep a continual watch upon the heart 
 Luxurious fond, then if, or eye, or hand. 
 Offend against propriety, thou knowest. 
 And hesitatest not to cut one off, 
 Pluck out the other, in a moral sense : 
 Adultery beware in thought, and in 
 Every possibility of the crime : 
 And swear not ever j by God's throne for that 
 May not be mention'd save in holy awe ; 
 Nor should the footstool of the Lord of Hosts 
 Be less accounted in the sight of men ; 
 Jerusalem belongeth to the King 
 Of Zion, the Deliverer ; neither that 
 The joy of earth redeem' d, nor yet the crown 
 Of man, his head, should ever be adjured ; 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 401 
 
 Simplicity of speech is always best, 
 
 More than simplicity from evil comes : 
 
 Who the right cheek may smite, to him thy left 
 
 Cheerfully turn ; to that the Lord will see ; 
 
 ' Vengeance is mine, I will repay ' saith God :. 
 
 Who sues at law and takes away one's coat, 
 
 Give him our cloak ; if forced one mUe, go two ; 
 
 And from no borrower turn away the face : 
 
 Love all your enemies, and even bless 
 
 Those who do curse you ; those who hate you, serve; 
 
 For all despiteful persons pray, like Christ : 
 
 Upon the evil and the good alike 
 
 The sun is made to shine ; the rain comes down 
 
 Both on unjust and just; do thou like God : 
 
 Trumpet no alms of thine ; hypocrisy 
 
 Is hateful to the Lord of light and truth. 
 
 And he will punish that to the extent 
 
 With which unostentatious charity. 
 
 Though it requireth none, reward shall have :. 
 
 So also let thy prayers most secret be ; 
 
 Praying not like the heathen who suppose 
 
 That importunity avails with Him 
 
 Who knoweth what we want before 'tis ask'd. 
 
 And willingly dispensed beyond our need ; 
 
 After this manner pray ' Our Father dear. 
 
 In heaven, Thy Name be hallow'd ; let God 
 
 Thy kingdom come, and let Thy will be done 
 
 On earth as it is alway done in heaven ; 
 
402 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Give us our daily bread, and forgive 
 Our trespasses, as we forgive all who 
 May trespass against us ; and lead us not 
 Into temptation but deliver us 
 From evil, for the kingdom, Lord, is thine. 
 The power, and glory, evermore, amen : ' 
 
 " Fast as though ye were feasting ; nor lay up 
 What moth and rust corrupt and thieves can steal ; 
 In heaven your treasure should be always found, 
 Place all your hopes and your affections there : 
 Single should be thine eye, the fount of light, 
 Or light to darkness presently is turn'd : 
 No one can God and mammon square to serve : 
 If still the cares of life intrusive are. 
 Dismiss them; fowls sow not, yet are they fed ; 
 Shall our dear Father ever man forget ? 
 The lilies of the field, birds, common grass, 
 Higher in God's regard than man is high ! 
 First seek His kingdom, righteousness obtain ; 
 All things therein included, care may go ; 
 Sufficient for itself is current time : 
 
 " Judge only as you would yourself be judged : 
 Exaggerate no failing when thy own 
 May be as any beam compared to motes ; 
 If thou art faultless, thou may'st then prevail 
 Out of thy brother's eye a mote to take : 
 All holy things carefully keep from dogs ; 
 Cast not to swine your pearls, or they are trod 
 
THE CHBISTIAD. 403 
 
 Upon to rend the soul with grief and shame : 
 Ask God and help you surely shall obtain ; 
 Seek favour in His sight and ye shall find ; 
 Knock at heaven's door, Jesus will open that 
 Delighted to receive, the lame, the blind, 
 Out from the scarcely-sheltering hedges crept. 
 And all the sweepings of the world's highway : 
 
 " Whatever ye would have, or God, or man. 
 That they to you should do, even so to them 
 Do ye ; then all the Law will be fulfiU'd : 
 This is the gate of life, straight make thereto ; 
 Though few the pilgrimage from earth may take : 
 False guides beware lest they aside seduce 
 Thy steps, detection on their tricks awaits ; 
 Not every one who God invoketh goes 
 The heavenly way, but those who do His will ; 
 Wonderful works some boast, but faith with works 
 Alone retain the sterling stamp of grace : 
 Upon the rock, his house a wise man builds ; 
 Down come both rain and flood j against it blows 
 The wind ; but founded on its rock that house . 
 Falls not but stands ; so stands the hope of those 
 Who hear and do waht Jesus Christ proclaims : 
 Who hear but do not that, upon the sand 
 Foolishly build what rain, nor flood, nor wind, 
 Can in the day of judgment hope to stand : " 
 
 These are Christ's sayings ; this the Gospel brought 
 By our Redeemer ; come as God might come 
 DD 2 
 
404 
 
 THE CHHISTIAD. 
 
 Pitying to mankind ; to bear with them 
 As children ; to indue their little mind 
 With alphabetic wisdom ; feeding man 
 With the sweet milk and manna of His word, 
 Fitted for babes ; for as the natural man 
 A stranger was to God, he must be born 
 Again from travail'd pains a creature new 
 And fed according till the stronger meat 
 Of wisdom, in due course, should be required. 
 
 Thus He who stretch'd the firmament abroad 
 Aforth in starry wonder by command, 
 Down from His heavenly dwelling-place descends, 
 God manifested for our sake ; and thus 
 Was shown what love our Saviour bore to men : 
 Beyond the warmth of words, the sense of thought, 
 The feeling of the heart, mind, soul, and all, 
 Thus our Redeemer show'd His love for us. 
 
 Who, sole, may praise what all the Church inspires ?' 
 Though every member of the Mystic Spouse 
 Participates the fulness of her joy : 
 Each single member is by Christ beloved 
 Beyond the worth of worlds, but who presumes 
 That Christ, for his own individual sake 
 Came into all these worlds to teach and die ? 
 His witness we all have ; each for himself. 
 His special self, attested, that the Lord 
 In dying for these worlds died eke for him ; 
 But praises and thanksgiving to the Lord, 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 405 
 
 Though offer'd personally, are best preferr'd 
 
 In-mass'd from His beloved Spouse the Church : 
 
 From Amana, Shenir, and Hermon, from 
 
 The lions' dens and mountains of the pards, 
 
 She looks ecclesiac out ; " Open, my love ! 
 
 To me ; open thy heart, my Undefiled ! 
 
 With dew my head is fill'd ; my locks are wet. 
 
 Waiting, my love ! for thee ! " " Chiefest is He 
 
 Among ten thousands ! ruddy and white in youth, 
 
 His glorious head like shining gold appears ; 
 
 Black as a raven's wing His curling hair ; 
 
 His eyes like doves' are beautiful to see ; 
 
 Like the selectest spices smell His cheeks ; 
 
 Like sweetest flowers ; two lilies are His lips, 
 
 A myrrhian fragrance theirs ; like golden rings 
 
 Set with the beryl both His beauteous hands. 
 
 His waist is whitest ivory overlaid 
 
 With sapphires ; golden pillars are Thy legs ; 
 
 As Lebanon Christ's countenance appears ; 
 
 Cedarous every feature in that face : 
 
 for that most sweet mouth ! and not for that 
 
 Alone, for, altogether lovely, Christ 
 
 Hideth amongst the lilies till the day 
 
 Break and earth's shadows flee : my best Beloved, 
 
 Be like a roe, or a young hart, upon 
 
 The everlasting mountains of Bether !" 
 
 Bright Shiner o'er the storms of wintry time, 
 Hope of all worlds, our Advocate, our Light, 
 
406 
 
 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Most truthful Prophet, Priest, Incarnate King, 
 
 Abroad Christ goeth, the spirit in His mouth 
 
 Of wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, 
 
 Knowledge, and fear of God : not judging by 
 
 The erring eyes, neither reproving after 
 
 The itching ears, equitably judged He, 
 
 Folly reproved and wickedness smote down : 
 
 But who His great report believed amongst 
 
 The worlds so visited ? the virulence 
 
 Of man is like his virulence who claims 
 
 Hell for a fee, all hate and despite there : 
 
 Thus when the fiend-possess'd, to Christ fell down 
 
 Worshipping Him who cast the devils out, 
 
 " 'Tis by Beelzebub he acts," cried they 
 
 Who sway'd and represented nations there : 
 
 Upbraided, cursed, reviled, and storm' d-at, Christ 
 
 Patiently bore our griefs and carried all 
 
 Our sorrows ; all the chastisement we deserved 
 
 He bore, and by those stripes mankind are heal'd : 
 
 Oppress'd was He, afflicted, yet the mouth 
 
 Christ never open'd : as a lamb is brought 
 
 To slaughter, as a sheep is meekly dumb 
 
 Before the shearers, so was Jesus found : 
 
 From prison, by the falsest judgment He 
 
 Was taken and to execution sent : 
 
 His generation who may tell ? cut off 
 
 Thus from the living ; stricken thus for all 
 
 Our great transgressions : yea, it pleased the Lord 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 407 
 
 To bruise Him as an offering for sin ; 
 And such bless'd seed from forth the sorrow comes 
 As God shall satisfy : but woe to you, 
 Chorazin and Bethsaida ; thou exalt 
 Capernaum who His mighty works denied, 
 Art worse than Sodom ; wicked scribes, and all 
 The Pharisees, woe, woe, also to you ; 
 Heaven ye disdain and others keep shut out, 
 Devouring widowhood ; long prayers ye make 
 And numbers to hypocrisy seduce ; 
 Woe unto ye blind guides^ ye fools so blind 
 Who swear, not by the Temple but its gold. 
 Not by the Altar but the gift it holds ; 
 Of mint, anise, and cummin, tithe you pay,' 
 Judgment, faith, mercy, foreign unto you ; 
 Straining at a small gnat, a camel whole 
 Easily goeth down your monstrous throat ; 
 You whited sepulchres,, outside so fair, . , . 
 Within the foulest bones of sin and death ; 
 generation of sharp vipers, How 
 From hell's damnation. How, can you escape ? 
 Sequential were the woes ; and Jesus taught 
 Authoritively all these woes denounced, 
 Undoubting the accomplishment they have ; 
 No blessing from His lips a failure proved ; 
 No commination shrinks from its effect 
 By Him denounced on sinners : but the race 
 Which God from woe would save, sold him to pain, 
 
408 
 
 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 To torment, nay, to death : Judas betrays 
 
 His Master with a kiss ; Christ is arraign' d 
 
 Before the judgment seat of PUate as 
 
 A traitor worthy death : His innocence 
 
 Is manifestly clear, but so intent 
 
 Were the high-priests and rulers on His life, 
 
 That urgently they bring innocent blood 
 
 Upon their own and unborn children's heads : 
 
 The sun grew black to see, the earth quaked when 
 
 The great propitiation made for sin, 
 
 In such a manner was accomplished : 
 
 Men rose from out the grave when Jesus died, 
 
 Offering up His life to God incensed j 
 
 But God His Holy One would not allow 
 
 To see corruption, nor should Christ remain 
 
 Intomb'd ; over both Sin and Death He rose 
 
 Triumphant into heaven, the hellish Powers 
 
 Back falling, terror-struck, as Christ arose. 
 
 -®~— 
 
BOOK IX. 
 
THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 OuB poet describes the assembling of all the holy angels 
 and the Coronation of Christ in heaven : commissioned of the 
 Almighty Father against the Prince of Darkness, God the Son 
 drives forth in all the terror of His arms to make an end of the 
 Rebellious : Hell embattles in expectation of the dread attack ; 
 but the infernal gates are thundered in, the Damned fly before 
 our Lord, and Lucifer is overpowered at the brightness of His 
 appearance : driven like chaff before God's wrath, the fallen 
 angels are engulfed in the Bottomless pit and consigned to 
 eternal perdition. 
 
 While this final act progressed, the current of time on earth 
 is noted by our bard who shows, both the ruin of the anai'chic 
 Powers and consequent decrease of darkness in the terresti'ial 
 region : the idols fall, and Antichrist declines before the tidings 
 of salvation : Celebrating Faith in his devoutest strains, bless- 
 ing Religion, and invoking Charity ; calling upon his Comitry 
 aa a glorious Hope, and offering up himself again to the Divine 
 Mercy, our poet then resigns his harp, anticipating the song of 
 Moses and the Lamb with the Redeemed in heaven. 
 
 Time. — The ninth and tenth days are spent variously in heaven, 
 the world, and hell, in this action. 
 
BOOK IX, 
 
 " Let flare hell's oriflamme ! the hour is come 
 King of the Damn'd : infernal monarch, all 
 Thy devildom prepare ! the gods of fire 
 Summon in harshest thunder for thy crown 
 Of rays, nine-spiked from shiver'd lightnings, sits 
 Loose on thy blacken' d brow ; Vengeance like ten 
 Hyrcanian lionesses, rends thee all 
 To pieces in her thought, her mind, her soul : 
 Arm instant ! all the angelry is arm'd 
 Against thee ; all the saints of God are arm'd, 
 Mouth speaking-mighty-things, ruling the whole 
 One slain before these worlds foundation had : 
 Arm ! He is strong who judgeth thee : even now 
 God's banner they prepare with looks that run 
 Thy last remaining drop of blood to shed : 
 Let desolated hell roar out aloud 
 With all thy preparation ! ready stand 
 Him of the many Crowns which never fail'd, 
 For now the Lord shall make a prey of all 
 
412 THE CHHISTIAD. 
 
 Adversaries and recompense thy spite : 
 
 Unto an end thy Kingdom draweth nigh, 
 
 For God Himself against thee now will fight : 
 
 Thou who the first from out the Book of life 
 
 Wast blotted, keep thy word ! deny not Him ! 
 
 Hold fast ! for he descendeth ; the Amen ; 
 
 Him upon whom to look is terrible : 
 
 Thy chariot, bow, and arrow, take ! He comes 
 
 Name of Blasphemy : Death's palest horse 
 
 Harnessing, Death to thy right hand advance ! 
 
 The day of wrath is risen ; final woes 
 
 Hail, fire, and blood, and burning mountains great 
 
 Of brimstone, plagues, and torments, they prepare. 
 
 Thou Dragon ! wherewithal to wound thee to 
 
 The second death : thou Outcast of the skies, 
 
 Deceiver of the worlds, profaning all 
 
 God's sacred image personate in man j 
 
 Dying, thy smoke for ever and for aye 
 
 In torment up shall rise beyond all fire : 
 
 Destroyer ! now to overcome, or be 
 
 O'ercome redemption past, thyself ennerve : 
 
 Ennerve for Him who to this war upon 
 
 God's thigh girds fast the sword : Damnation, come ! 
 
 Seize on this falling, and dishonour'd king !" 
 
 Thus sung, vociferously loud, the Muse, 
 Bearing me through the heavens ; encouraging 
 Ever the more we rose, through all the six 
 Into the holiest sphere of all the seven : 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 413 
 
 Cecilia ! thou may'st better tell what then 
 
 Enrapt we felt; the joy, the overflowing 
 
 And boundless gladness, not to be restrain'd. 
 
 The animation which dissolved us ; as 
 
 Within the radiant sunlight clouds dissolve ; 
 
 And ! as earth we left mine eyes were fire, 
 
 Dispelling all the mists of ages with 
 
 A glance forgetful of the evil day 
 
 Since on a foreign soil my feet were forced : 
 
 " Exult ! the heavens exult ! " cried she, " the hour 
 
 Retributive for God and man is come ! 
 
 Caverns, and crags, and pitchy fountains, and 
 
 Ye boiling, bubbling, oceans in th' abysm, 
 
 Deserts and wildernesses, how I laugh 
 
 With inextinguishable laughter ! Hell, 
 
 Ha, ha, how now I scream with joy to laugh !" 
 
 Thus with elation infinite, through the air, 
 Sweeping our harp to the unmeasured strain, 
 We pass'd like spirits ; all the universe 
 Drinking our sound : How joyfully we gasp'd 
 For breath ! and well for me so copious full 
 Of waters far more fresh than those which flow 
 From Euhoe ; else through the aurine spheres 
 We had not sped like that ! High above them 
 Shone the superior Heaven of heaven ; but who, 
 
 who the elemental light can paint ? 
 
 1 saw, faint feeling ; but, dear Muse ! thy arms 
 Of alabaster-white were mine, else I 
 
414 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Its threshold had not self-possessed cross'd : 
 
 Accept, Lord God ! our presence ; deem it not 
 
 Unholy, Lord ! in Thy most gracious sight ; 
 
 Encompass us in mercy, God of Grace ; 
 
 Our feet from stumbling keep, we Thee beseech ! 
 
 And ! thou Holy Spirit, consecrate 
 
 The apprehensive pen with which I write : 
 
 Beneath a canopy that made the suns 
 Celestial look opaque, behold the thrones 
 Of all the holy angels : still more light 
 And shining in solidity they glow. 
 So that I scarcely bear the glorious shine 
 Ravishingly emitted from them all 
 Beyond the flashing of the diamond bright : 
 Whereto shall they be liken' d, if that bright 
 Is only darkness when to heaven's compared ? 
 Diamonds no more I value since those thrones, 
 Magniiicent beyond all thought appear'd : 
 
 Upon the cloudless height of solid day 
 Which in their centre stood, distinctly shaped 
 Uprises high the cohimn'd Throne of Power : 
 What ornaments hath that ! Isocrates 
 Panegyrized not them by all the terms 
 Known to enthusiast Cinna ; aU the praise 
 Vitruvius and Palladio knew were mean, 
 And the Five Orders but disorder'd lines 
 Scorn'd by Callimachus had he seen these ! 
 Up its foundations rise from azured seas 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 415 
 
 Illumined with the white that drifted snow 
 
 Tum'd black, and with the clear that crystal made 
 
 Insufferable dirt : on every side 
 
 Wing'd bodies shine ; as spirits made aU eye 
 
 When transported with love : countless are they ; 
 
 And how the burning cherubim do bear, 
 
 As Caryatides, or genii, the 
 
 Piled pillar'd columns gorgeously up ! 
 
 Grandly stand they as if for ever fix'd 
 
 In solemn pride of glorious honour there ; 
 
 All their adoring eyes uplifted high : 
 
 that I dared to follow looks like those 
 Sent upward into glory ! but the hosts 
 
 Of heaven are standing and, while standing, bend. 
 
 All lost in wonder, down their eyes devout ; 
 
 Humbly acknowledging the Lord beyond 
 
 The homage of all angels, virtues, thrones. 
 
 Seraphim, principalities, domains : 
 
 Up they look not, but lowly to the ground 
 
 Send their regardful looks most reverently : 
 
 Distinguish'd there I see who kill'd Togarm, 
 And who in war was first successful to 
 Despatch rebellious life : who also took 
 The banner'd Pride of war, distinguish'd there 
 
 1 see ; and these whose names are high inscribed 
 Upon the Arch of Triumph which was first 
 Decreed and raised in honour of their deeds ; 
 These names of great renown, had duly been 
 
416 THE OHRISTIAD. 
 
 Reconsecrated to the Lord of Hosts 
 
 When summon'd to the Presence ; for the Lord 
 
 Summon'd, when Christ into His heaven return'd, 
 
 The holy angels where archangels never 
 
 Before were summon'd, up the trinal stairs, 
 
 Into the Holy of the Holies, where, 
 
 Ecstatic, all th' assembled angels bow : 
 
 And now the dial which celestial time 
 Mark'd was about to chime another day, 
 The fifth since Adam from perfection fell 
 To imperfection and mankind in him. 
 When one like to the Son of Man, unto 
 The foot divinely clothed and girt about 
 With a gold girdle ; shines His hair. His eyes 
 Shine, and His feet as fulgent burn and glow ; 
 Upon that Throne appears : within His hand 
 Carried the seven refulgent Stars of God, 
 Then the Seven Spirits of Jehovah saw 
 Indeed their Sovereign God and Lord Most High : 
 " Fear me not " then cried He, " I am the First 
 And Last ; I lived and was dead, but I 
 Live to possess the keys of Hell and Death :" 
 
 The solar spheres were seen to bend as if 
 They ready were to snap when, like the sound 
 Of many waters, Heaven was thus address'd 
 By Him who sway'd Heaven, all the worlds, and hell : 
 And then one knelt in lowliness before 
 That triple Throne, an angel of account. 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 417 
 
 In the eternal counsel " Knowledge " call'd, 
 And from a living- lock drew out a great 
 Imperisliable scroll : open rolls that 
 Out from ten warped wings, and all the names 
 Of the rebellious sons of light reveals 
 Blotted all over : Knowledge vainly pored 
 The undiscernible oblivion'd names 
 That once shone there authentical ; now God 
 Himself could not authenticate one therein ; 
 Though the divinest light thereto were sent, 
 Right straight into the black and horrid blank : 
 Memory then before Him brought the Book 
 Of God's remembrance ; solemnly he brought 
 That fearful volume : shading both his eyes. 
 That Power open'd to Omniscience all 
 The infamous rebellion ; since the Prince 
 Of Fury that conceived which aim'd on high 
 Treason against the Sov'reign Crown and Lord : 
 A crash of heavy thunder falls from out 
 The hands of Justice ; Justice him to call 
 Who looks so terrible that Throne beside, 
 Those thunders altogether were too light : 
 And then affi-ighted but sustain'd I saw 
 Phantasmagorian shapes of shadow start 
 Boldly from out those pages of offence 
 And recollection ; the reflexion'd shapes 
 Of pride and blasphemy, which futile struck. 
 But desperate, at God till God was grieved 
 
 E E 
 
418 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 All His blest angels miserable made : 
 
 But tbe quick Prescience hastening, open'd all 
 
 His shining tablets and the concourse thrill'd 
 
 With sacred joy to read what Heaven design'd 
 
 In thus assembling all that glorious Court : 
 
 The past perplexities which no one thought 
 
 Possible eoer to make clear, therein 
 
 Straighten'd both unto reason and to love, 
 
 Up all the blessed angels look from light 
 
 To light until they apprehend the Lord : 
 
 Evil inmix'd with good, served only as 
 
 Its foil and proper setting ; in that sense 
 
 Evil itself was useful unto good : 
 
 If gold had not some dross, comparison 
 
 Wanting, then gold were but a common thing : 
 
 Heaven itself an illustration found 
 
 From the dread sphere which, in the vasty space, 
 
 Look'd as a strange unnatural thing might look 
 
 Swimming within infinity of sea; 
 
 Thence God withdrew His presence so that no 
 
 Trace of His love was found ; only in heaven. 
 
 Which, thus enjoying all, seems heaven the more 
 
 By contrast with the realm where Satan blazed : 
 
 Then rose the Son of Man from His high place 
 Preeminential ; the heavenly hosts 
 Adore and bow to see as God arose : 
 Absolute Lord looks He ; but in the eyes 
 Of Christ I saw, and read, and felt, and knew. 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 419 
 
 What His commission was for worlds beloved, 
 And, dear Eeligion ! we these worlds will tell ; 
 For what I most devoutly gazed to see, 
 Gladden'd attention every world will give 
 To hear, and everlasting joy ensue : 
 
 And, first, the light was yet more hallow'd made 
 And more resplendent : Intellect did this 
 By means most secret, only known to him 
 And to the Bosom whence that Power came ; 
 Exceeding lustrous brightness all his own : 
 The Seven which stood before the Throne of Thrones 
 Adoring then with looks submiss, and voice 
 Awed almost into silence, " Holy ! " cried, 
 " Holy ! " The four-and-twenty crowned Heads 
 Which round the sea of crystal stood, replied, 
 " Holy Lord God Almighty, which was, is, 
 And art to come : " with that their golden crowns 
 They humbly put before Messias down ; 
 Worthy all glory, honour, power, to have 
 Over the worlds created by His word j 
 For Him they were created : in the midst 
 Of all these shining seats, then harpers harp'd, 
 " Worthy the Lamb ; power, wisdom, riches, strength. 
 And honour, glory, blessing, unto Him, 
 Sitting upon the Throne ! " Bright cherubim 
 Cried to that, " Amen ! Amen ! " and Heaven 
 Cried " Crown Him Lord of the Eternal All ! " 
 
 Then a bright diadem I saw, with gems 
 
 E E 2 
 
420 THE CHR18TIAD. 
 
 Enrich'd ; heliotropional gems 
 New made ; and only God made gems like those, 
 Clear glistening : " who shall ever wear 
 That diadem ? " Eternity I. heard 
 In a low whisper ask, when One, unseen 
 If seen, placed it upon His head and straight 
 Anointed God the Son with unction'd joy : 
 Then praise supreme was heard, and heaven rung out 
 In one full-hearted hymn " Eternal King ; 
 King of the worlds innumerable ; God's 
 Coheritor, before Eternity 
 Bow'd living in Thy presence ; Wonderful- 
 One, filled with all fulness bodily. 
 Manifested in flesh the Filial God ; 
 Personality Divine; thou Sun 
 Of Righteousness, ineffable to see ; 
 God of illimitable Glory ; Thou 
 Transcendent Mystery of the Covenant 
 Made with mankind ; the Messenger of God 
 In God, and Centre of Perfection ; 0, 
 The alleluias of heaven receive ! 
 Before the light indiadem'd by Thee, 
 Crown'd King ! what tongue sufficient praises made ? 
 Dominion everlasting Thine, Lord ! 
 From everlasting to infinity : 
 Our intermingled voices are Thy own, 
 And all the Psalmody that heaven can tune ; 
 Yet music is but vain : shawm, dulcimer, 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 421 
 
 Lute, harp, and harpsichord ! be soothly strung- 
 
 To the most rapturously expressive love 
 
 That may acceptable be found for Him 
 
 Who rules and reigns Sabaotli's God and Lord : 
 
 Ye shaping visions ; all swift-winged sprites 
 
 That bring the morning light, and ever tend 
 
 On us, God's happy subjects ; join our song 
 
 A general chorus ! Melodies hereunto 
 
 Kept sacred glad, unlock that all may flow 
 
 Back to the broad capacious ocean of 
 
 The inexhaustless Goodness whence all come 
 
 Originally forth : lyres and all harps 
 
 Sigh sympathetic concords ! Lord, with them 
 
 We skreen our dazzled eyes ; and all the words 
 
 Of heaven rejecting as incompetent 
 
 Unto the measure of Thy blissful Name, 
 
 In unpremeditated sound express 
 
 To Thee, Commission' d. Crown' d, our rapturous joy ! " 
 
 what a burst was then from all the heart 
 Of heaven ! like silver rivers streak'd with gold. 
 Sparkling with million million flashing stars. 
 And the most argent, aurine, shining, gems ; 
 Which seem and seem not till they flash again, 
 So that each angel in that countless quire 
 Felt his expression for himself, by all 
 Was comprehended and by God enjoy'd 
 To the extremest force : and then I heard 
 From out the primal source of all things come, 
 
422 THE CHHISTIAD. 
 
 Command to Honour and to Providence ; 
 
 Who, thus permitted, spoke, bright Honour first : 
 
 " Ye congregated angels who in war 
 Drove all the Powers of Perdition down 
 Broken and blasted to astonishment 
 Past, as we thought, recovery from shame ; 
 We know how when the brutal force of arms 
 Fail'd him, the King of Pride in mind renew'd 
 The forceful hope originally his : 
 Though Hell made prize of that dishonour'd Crown, 
 Hell's bonds and bars he burst afresh to plan. 
 And part accomplish, injury to us : 
 An injury it was, (though God can be 
 No way diminish'd ii-om the Sov'reign height 
 Title and honour which are all His own,) 
 When with seductive words and falsest show, 
 All undivulged his bad pretence, that Prince 
 The insurrection raised which ended in 
 The overthrow of full one third in heaven ; 
 Those whom creative Love ordain'd as bright 
 Intelligences, into darkness blent 
 With inexpressible rage : but how much more 
 Injuriously spiteful was his act 
 In the seduction of those races form'd 
 To occupy the regions lost on high ; 
 This heaven replenish'd from the worlds which God, 
 The Everlasting Son, with life endow'd 
 In that intention : all who rose in heaven 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 423 
 
 Rebelling', hoped, what gods might not disdain. 
 
 Advancement, power ; but the terrestrial tribes, 
 
 Though flatter'd with the selfsame hope, well he 
 
 Who compass'd man, knew how fallacious, vain, 
 
 And impious it was ; what too ensued 
 
 From its pursuit to them, destruction, death. 
 
 And most deserved punishment from the Lord : 
 
 The first rebellion arose in pride ; 
 
 His next attempt was less from pride than spite, 
 
 Though how great Lucifer should thus bemean 
 
 His towering crest to us a mystery seem : 
 
 Hence all the unfall'n angels are at fault. 
 
 And altogether inoperative against 
 
 His arts ; although the Luciferian arms 
 
 Were coped and conquer' d by your shining hosts : 
 
 Even those souls which guardian spirits had 
 
 Appointed to them, often from our side 
 
 Wander'd or fell when least expected ; all 
 
 Our care and fond solicitude, our love 
 
 To them, and duteous watchfulness, in vain : 
 
 Thus the declension of the worlds was so 
 
 Rapidly certain, that th' Infernal Powers 
 
 Promised unto themselves the latest and 
 
 Most marv'lous works of God the Lord Most High ; 
 
 Such spectacles we saw as tears compell'd. 
 
 So infinitely fall'n was man ; with him 
 
 Equally fallen every mortal thing. 
 
 So that the devils were themselves surprised : 
 
424 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 A mortal stroke at heaven the Princedom aim'd, 
 
 And an eternal triumph seem'd his own 
 
 Over mankind, in slime perversely drown'd : 
 
 Swelter'd his hell in joy ; o'erglutted with 
 
 Insanest confidence when all their sphere 
 
 Terrestrial roll'd obedient unto them : 
 
 Even the spheres celestial were inclined 
 
 Unto the deadly influence they sway'd 
 
 When, God adorable ! thy mercy found 
 
 In their last exigence a way whereby 
 
 Salvation could be wrought, the worlds reprieved." 
 
 Seraphic Providence then lifting up 
 His holy hands and arms, and holy looks 
 Directing upward, praises gave to Him 
 Whose Majesty entranced to blissful awe 
 The opulential heavens : " Omnipotent 
 And only Lord ! " cried he, " we praise, we bless, 
 We worship, glorify, and thank Thy Name, 
 Heavenly King ! Glory to God on high, 
 From ages unto ages without end !" 
 
 " Glory to God on high ! " all angels shout. 
 Adoring God the trebly sceptred Son : 
 His Triple Crown shines brighter to the praise, 
 And Providence related how mankind 
 Were often saved by means known sole to Him : 
 In God's foreknowledge they were sure design'd 
 For the redemption of such vessels as 
 It pleased the Lord of life, grace, and of love. 
 
THE CHRI9TIAD. 425 
 
 To choose for His own honour in the worlds ; 
 
 Thus when even angels of degree despair'd 
 
 Of the great charges which they had, when they 
 
 Fail'd from all influence o'er the headstrong souls, 
 
 Committed to their trust, Providence came, 
 
 Occult or open, and those souls redeem'd : 
 
 Eedemption was of grace j though some men seem 
 
 God's children from the womb, such grace is theirs : 
 
 Hence David was in disposition sweet 
 
 As Abel ; yet how different their lives. 
 
 Both Nathan and the guardian spirits knew : 
 
 Solomon, in his wisdom was perverse ; 
 
 Past all endurance if the Lord his God 
 
 Had not predestined miracles for him : 
 
 Thus Providence in miracles alone 
 
 Found the full satisfaction of belief; 
 
 In that amazing goodness which preserved 
 
 A stock and root with seed from out mankind : 
 
 No angel could do that ; but only God 
 
 The Highest, Sovereign and Almighty Lord ; 
 
 Enthroned above all power. Eternal God ; 
 
 Above all fate, the Everlasting King. 
 
 " Thy foes Thy footstool. Great Deliverer ! make ; 
 God make them Thy footstool !" Honour cried 
 Awfully solemn ; all his thoughts abased 
 To reverence before that Throne of Light : 
 The glowing myriads shine and tremble bright 
 When, thus invoked, the Lord endued the signs 
 
426 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Of wrath, war, woe, and death, against the Powers 
 
 Who fear'd His being ; His ! and only His : 
 
 With sig^s of dreadful war the heavens were paled j 
 
 To hopeful expectation trembling high : 
 
 What wrongs Messiah brook'd, all heaven heard from 
 
 The angels who beheld how Christ was tried 
 
 In the drear wilderness ; and when the sweat 
 
 Ran like great drops of blood from off His brow, 
 
 Gethsemane, in thee ! When He was nail'd 
 
 Unto the cross and lifted to the sky 
 
 A mockery for fiends, when pierced His side 
 
 The spear. His Father's face hidden away. 
 
 Who taunted then the Lord and gloried o'er 
 
 His bitter agony, but, Satan, thee ? 
 
 The Jews, constrain'd before the shrouded skies, 
 
 A dreadful earthquake, and reopen'd graves. 
 
 Cried a confession to the King denied ; 
 
 But pride Infernal no confession made ; 
 
 Only increased in hardihood and hate : 
 
 Still the Adamic race was claim' d by him 
 
 Whose neck never should bend, nor hate surcease : 
 
 Before the Throne audaciously denied, 
 
 Continual up, implacable and proud. 
 
 Defiant Hell blasphemy hurl'd and God 
 
 Menacing threaten'd : " God !" all angels cry 
 
 Indignant ; comprehending that the Lord 
 
 Made Man, as man would all the more incline 
 
 To their indignant spirit and excuse 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 427 
 
 The holy anger which such words induced ; 
 
 " Thou King Immortal, Infinite, avenge 
 
 Thy ministers so oft frustrated in 
 
 The mission given to them : and ! avenge 
 
 Mankind betray'd so foully : if Thy Throne 
 
 Be all above, not only the attempt 
 
 But thought of finite beings, is it meet, 
 
 Jehovah ! that Thy heavenly place should be 
 
 Depopulated while the spheres extern 
 
 Are ruin'd by the fell malignant Prince ? 
 
 Pinion him ; chastise the prideful king ; 
 
 Make him a show for slaves ; the sport or scorn 
 
 Of heaven where once he ruled ; and drag him then 
 
 In triumph through our skies to be consign'd 
 
 Unto some dungeon in the wasteful void ; 
 
 A spectacle of horror, baffled, shamed ; 
 
 A loathed, detested, miserable, thing : 
 
 Can he and God exist, the worlds at peace ? 
 
 One must before the orb Supreme decline 
 
 And be a darkness : God can never share 
 
 Dominion ; there can be no mate with Him ; 
 
 And Lucifer disdain'd the second place 
 
 In universal empire : all the front 
 
 Of Power must be his own, not thine, Lord God ! 
 
 His actions all are purposed to that end : 
 
 The misbegotten valour and the fierce 
 
 Extreme of wickedness that pride produced, 
 
 Mangle unto a shadow, Lord, we pray ! " 
 
428 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Trembled the Heaven of Heaven these words to hear ; 
 The heavens all trembled while the angels thus 
 Boldly address'd the Throne Messias held : 
 What power their mind and voice carried, was found 
 When the Incarnate Word gloriously rose 
 And to the upper Throne of Thrones went up, 
 The ancient Throne of Days, with all their force : 
 To the far confines of Hades, the Damn'd 
 Heard the full exultation when the Lord 
 Jehovah unto that dread prayer inclined ; 
 Thus by His Son, His only Son, preferr'd : 
 Confusion heard confounded ; God had hell 
 Shaken ; as any tree by storm might shake ; 
 And the infernal agnates of the place 
 Hurry where sate their emperor surprised : 
 " Embattled be forthwith ! blaze all the fires 
 On every hill of name !" cried he ; " sound, Night ! 
 All thy great gongs : our adamantine gates 
 Shut to ; shoot all the bars : bristle our walls. 
 Garrison' d, with all arms inpanoplied ! " 
 
 Night rattles all her gongs, the noise put down 
 That drown'd the voice of the clamantous prayer ; 
 And Hell embattles straight : the horrid plumes 
 Shake horrid, yet once more as every chief 
 Glares murder whiten'd to a ghostly fear : 
 The great recess of waste is moved fear-struck ; 
 And those that had not wings, from all its depths 
 Clomb up with iron claws, beaks, and their teeth ; 
 
THE CHHI8TIAD. 
 
 While the webb'd horrors from their gulfs steam up 
 In all the might of wonder those to hear : 
 The direful Dirse meet ; never before 
 From the red furnaces such objects came ; 
 Geryon and Echidna were not dire : 
 Strange tempests lift the oceans into life, 
 Delugial high until a Form comes forth 
 From the profound abysm, bared thus, that sank 
 The Worm Undying down as nought to him : 
 Hell blackens at his look, and at his frown 
 Would flee ; as Lucifer himself fain would 
 From that tremendous shape make haste to fly : 
 (An agued fear were ours such things to write 
 Had we not in the spirit fearless seen 
 What Dante stagger'd and struck Milton mute ; 
 The hell they pictured were to ours a heaven :) 
 Aghast we saw it flame ; far more aghast 
 The Anarch blacken'd that terrific shape 
 To see ; a horror shot through all his frame : 
 Pallid his features turn ; his knees are knock'd 
 Smiting together : so a thief may pale ; 
 Or an adulterer, in the act thrust through 
 His midriff, heart, and all, with sword and spear : 
 Burns the big monster until Hell would turn 
 The back on him and Lucifer; that back 
 Seems broken, seen the one, dreaded the next : 
 Howl'd all the spirits living ; and the dead 
 Spirits also would howl were voices theirs : 
 
 429 
 
430 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Eoused then the King ; as if he only dream'd 
 
 Before only but folly : both the flags 
 
 Adramelec and Moloch boasted stUl, 
 
 Fell from their hands when silence broke the strings 
 
 Of all her dreadful tongues thus far kept mute : 
 
 Death looks as if his secrets he will tell, 
 
 Or anything disclose, if he might save 
 
 The life within him : Terror doubles up 
 
 His fearful body : Blackness blacker grows : 
 
 The Dirse look as doubtful if they see, 
 
 Or, mad, imagine such a dreadful thing : 
 
 Chaos stands petrified before the fume 
 
 Which is his breath ; that breath makes hell seem cold, 
 
 Until, like some fierce blast o'er forests burnt 
 
 Searching the embers, hell glows hot thereto : 
 
 Dreadless looks he, contemptuous j all the heap'd- 
 
 Up ashes of despair blown far and wide ; 
 
 Half burnt out pits, to incandescence blown : 
 
 The fiery seas which yet are mounded he 
 
 Unlocks to horror ; crying with a voice 
 
 Indescribable words of wrath and woe. 
 
 Driving the devils and the sable troops 
 
 Which fed on efflorescent sulphurs to 
 
 A. weeping, wailing, gnashing of the teeth : 
 
 His killing eyes the soot-black ghosts and jinns. 
 
 Such as queen Seba's throne upheld, with all 
 
 The lamise, graise, fouler than were spawn'd 
 
 In the Erythrtean sea, or in the marsh 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 431 
 
 Maremman, anacondas, serpents, all 
 
 On fire with horned flames, their forms all o'er 
 
 Painted with chancrous nodes ; the shocking things 
 
 Splay-footed, whose erected hair grew out 
 
 Directly from the naked brain, and worms 
 
 Of fire long leagues in length ; all these drove he 
 
 Unto Aceldama, distracted, lorn : 
 
 Then out to Lucifer he held the hand 
 
 In amity ; such as Hades Hell may give : 
 
 The far obscure and hot grow more obscure. 
 
 More hot, when Cause and its Effect agreed : 
 
 Unto their council the Undying Worm 
 
 Promoted, all th' elopian spirits he 
 
 Took to himself commanding ; these the shores 
 
 Line thick by millions ; desperate in shape ; 
 
 Such as Amphitryon's son had died to see ; 
 
 Enyo fear'd them all : Beelzebub 
 
 O'er those born like unto himself, was set 
 
 A ruler ; and a most prolific brood 
 
 Were they, with wide wen-lipped, wolfish, grins : 
 
 Death takes th' affrighted furies that had birth 
 
 Under himself outside the heavens, and in 
 
 The earth, eke too in hell ; arming them with 
 
 Great torches that Byzantine fire made frost ; 
 
 Tressed are they with snakes that strew the ground, 
 
 Countless their broods, unrest continual theirs ; 
 
 Either begetting, or producing ; now 
 
 Coiling and now uncoiling : plumed with flame 
 
482 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 As if new fired, and like a heavenly sprite 
 
 By the comparison, comes Night ; a shape 
 
 Illustrateth her eyes that all the vast 
 
 Beneath makes hollow ; o'er the Dirse she 
 
 Commandeth ; and the hell-bred Horrors they 
 
 Had, how we know not, gender'd ; one lank worm 
 
 I saw, what a snake ! he Terror made 
 
 Mean : over all the cavalry, his staff 
 
 The arch Commander stretch'd : rowels wore those 
 
 Grim horsemen : and their spurs to blood were used 
 
 Upon the streaming flank of every fierce. 
 
 Almost unmanageably fiery, steed : 
 
 Baal shines darkly from his seat ; and there 
 
 Ekriel, aforetime the most beautiful 
 
 Of cherubim, in worried horror shines : 
 
 who in poenal fires can dwell content ? 
 
 And oh what pity that endowments such 
 
 As once were all his own, should fall to pride ! 
 
 Gloomy looks he, corrupting ; so a man 
 
 Dieth with a claw'd cancer eating at 
 
 His heart ; and yet another in his throat : 
 
 Horrible ! horrible ! to that indeed 
 
 Is Ekriel then impair'd ? His Princely lord 
 
 Remaineth grand if ruin'd : men were made 
 
 Devilish by that fell, that desperate. Prince ; 
 
 But all above the metamorphosis, 
 
 Lucifer stands scorning both man and God : 
 
 Yea the great actor which made heaven a stage. 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 433 
 
 Bright suns and worlds his ever shifting- scenes, 
 
 Who won the deities to play the parts 
 
 In the grand drama of this tragedy, 
 
 After the high imperial fashion raged, 
 
 His resolution firm, hrave to the last, 
 
 His fury ever rising higher than 
 
 The sound, pregnant w^ith valour, signifying 
 
 Determination that no death should end. 
 
 And all the confidence of victory. 
 
 Immortal Virtues ! Honour, Fortitude, 
 Faith, Hope, and sweetest Charity, attest 
 What inspiration is for us required 
 So the proud Anarch to depicture here 
 As shall approve his mightiness without 
 Trespassing on the names that sacred are ; 
 Not to pass over the invisible line 
 Which separates your provinces from his. 
 Yet so to fill and mark his boundary 
 As shall complete the portrait of a mind 
 Worthy God's own regard, to honour born. 
 Gifted with inexhaustless fortitude. 
 Having a perfect faith in its own power. 
 And still so hopeful that no fires could blench. 
 Decrease, suppress, nor wither it in the least : 
 How the hard task is master' d. Love shall say ; 
 That Love which aspirations so sublime 
 As ours pronounces godlike though they fail'd : 
 Better oneself to wing aloft to heaven, 
 
 F 1? 
 
434 THE CHRI9TIAD. 
 
 Even if we flutter back, than rest content 
 With common objects and inferior things : 
 Such was our high design j for that our days 
 Are sold to labour, while delights we scorn 
 Thy praise Fame ! to earn and praise from God. 
 
 Upon His throne in Heaven, Messias sate 
 Imperial Lord and Autocrat on high : 
 What glory to the scene where Jesus reign'd 
 Must naturally belong, Light ! first of Powers ! 
 Thou who in heaven beheld what heaven contain'd 
 Before an angel into life was brought. 
 Ere angels were created, while as yet 
 Jehovah centred all things in a crown 
 Objectless, when no heaven but God was found. 
 Thou also, blest Religion! who the heavens 
 Dost, pilgrim-like, continually traverse 
 Unsandall'd and unshoon'd in holiness, 
 Continually praising God Most High, 
 Reveal what blissful rapture held the whole. 
 All the celestial spheres entranced to joy : 
 Unto that rapture, add the fateful hope 
 And ardent expectation which to God 
 Ascended in a prayer so heartfelt made : 
 Was there an after-wrath then, Christ! in Thee, 
 Which the Most High Jehovah knew not of; 
 Or only knew since God our nature took ? 
 Yea, all our nature ; and so that retain" d 
 That unbelieving Thomas might and did 
 
THE CHBISTIAD. 435 
 
 Feel where the spear enter'd our Saviour's side 
 
 And see the cruel print of nails upon 
 
 His hands and feet who crucified died : 
 
 Yea, verily ; and I also was once 
 
 Blessed to reach my consecrated sense 
 
 Forth where our Lord was pierced ; and I beheld 
 
 The marks in both those hands and feet, and saw, 
 
 Ineffable Eedeemer ! Jesus' face. 
 
 And now the Euling and the Reigning Lord ; 
 Not only touched with a feeling sense 
 Of man's infirmity, but moved through all 
 
 His human nature to a righteous thrill 
 
 Of anger that all-undeserving man 
 
 Should suffer from the most unscrup'lous pride 
 
 Of Satan ; who accused even the saints ; 
 
 Feeling that man was incident to heaven, 
 
 And fallen incidentally, decreed 
 
 The end of Blasphemy ; a finish put 
 
 Unto the wrongs of hate, and arms of pride, 
 
 Senseless ambition, arrogance, and rage : 
 
 Hark ! 't is the total universe to wreck 
 
 Utterly gone thought I, when, thundering up, 
 
 A cherty chariot fit for God behold ! 
 
 Such pealing thunder ne'er before was heard 
 
 When, darkling up, its rainbow steeds were seen 
 
 Flying through heaven ; all road those steeds to help : 
 
 All the void void, and constellations reel ; 
 
 All the Elysian pines and cedars bend 
 F f2 
 
436 
 
 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Their bronzed heads unto the rumbling g-round 
 As on pass they, a hurricane of joy : 
 The seat inimitably red, o'erflows 
 With a consuming- fire j great burning lamps, 
 Like fiery mountains, or like flaming stars. 
 Blaze up and down and up amongst those steeds, 
 Incessant lightnings flashing round about : 
 Berylline are the high and lofty wheels ; 
 Eyeful their spacious, all-including, round : 
 Ye bursts of spangled light, spirits to see ! 
 Immortal in your essence ! God en-lifes 
 For ever His occasions ; all the wheels 
 Of His high providence and will are Powers, 
 Living resistless ; living Virtues rapt 
 Into eternal being God to serve : 
 Glories of heaven ! bright asphodelian flowers. 
 Quick clouds of downy gold, quivering seas, 
 Reflecting rocks starlike, and conscious towers ; 
 Ye rubied palaces of living light 
 And voiceful fountains of the silver stream ; 
 All amethystine-made beautiful things 
 Inconsecrate to Him whose word is lifej 
 The honour'd furnitures which shine and glow 
 In the most holy temple of the Lord ; 
 The standard of immortal song is ours, 
 Be pageanted in this eternal verse, 
 God's flaming chariot foremost of the whole ! 
 Omnipotence rose, mounting ; lightnings blaze, 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 437 
 
 Growl all the thunders, and the heavens would flee 
 
 Before the terror taken to that Face j 
 
 But the Almighty Majesty upholds 
 
 Serene and frownless, while God rose, the heavens : 
 
 Up, for the hour is struck ! the King' who rules 
 All the celestial and terrestrial worlds, 
 Fully prepared against the opposed Prince 
 Of Hell, against His enemy in arms ! 
 Sound trump ! trumpets by thousands ! vials full 
 Of wrath bring forth ! for now God's sickle in 
 Shall be completely thrust, the winepress of 
 Justice be fiU'd and overfill'd with blood ! 
 
 Then to His hosts Almighty God, the clouds 
 Rolling away, such broods of thunder bared 
 In tempest cradled, that for every rebel 
 A handful bicker'd ; if a hand there were 
 To wield, and power to hurl, such direful things : 
 All angels, and the seven archangels, look 
 At them distrustful of themselves for that ! 
 There they all lie in nakedness, — the lithe 
 Lightnings amongst them running to-and-fro ; 
 Unto a tumult going, they so long 
 Had been in secret kept and strict chain'd up : 
 These lightnings and these thunders were the force 
 Boasted by Lucifer in council when, 
 But for that most disastrous deluge he 
 The whole outlaunch'd against his Sovereign Lord : 
 The Lord of Vengeance found them to His hand 
 
438 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Invented ; and since Pride such arms conceived 
 To Pride they should, at length, be all return'd : 
 How they do bicker ! livid, sheeted, wroth-: 
 Lo ! some quintupulary huge ; all these 
 But Lucifer could launch ; no lesser Power : 
 Shaggy are all their manes of horror, black : 
 Twirling, they crackle all their coals of fire, 
 Intensifying juniperian flame; 
 Eav'nously eating one another up : 
 "Woe ! woe !" hiss they ; " to those we trouble, woe !" 
 Upleaping all around the wheels of God ; 
 Looking directly hellward ; bulls and lions, 
 Eagles and men in spirit, how they rage ! 
 With all the fiery whole unfolded thus. 
 No more delay God makes but forward drove ; 
 Within, and upward, downward, round. His car 
 Vermilion brightness : far behind the hosts 
 Celestial stand astonied ; for to see 
 Them was astonishment, and God fearful 
 Seem'd when His exaltation was to war 
 Upon the Prince of Darkness : up imblazed 
 The Triune sceptre Christ holds ; up, in all 
 His Father's might commanding while to them 
 He streng-th imparted ; all the universe 
 Grasping each echo, wonder-mute the while : 
 Out then from heaven's wide gate the Godhead drove 
 With His archangels and seraphic hosts ; 
 Cherubim, Principalities, and Thrones, 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 439 
 
 Virtues, the Powers, Dominions : both the keys 
 
 Of Death and Hell unto His girdled zone 
 
 Hang rattling as they pass quicker than light ; 
 
 Aloft His glorious Sign is written with 
 
 All lamentation, mourning ; both within 
 
 And out, all o'er, that oriflamme is inscribed : 
 
 Thus as rode God, the skies turn black to see 
 
 Failing ; as when a tree untimely casts 
 
 The leaves by winter shaken ; or like a scroll 
 
 When it is scorch'd and crumpled : as God drove 
 
 Out from the portal of high heaven, the hills 
 
 And isles terrestrial their places left ; 
 
 Sores falling on the wicked ; all the seat 
 
 Satanic fill'd with darkness as they gnaw 
 
 The tongue for anguish of such sores and pains ; 
 
 Those who blasphemed with fearful judg-ments plagued : 
 
 " All things shall be renew'd" said God ; " the reign 
 
 Of evil in these worlds no more allow'd : 
 
 Ho every soul thirsting for life, come to 
 
 Your Saviour for the Tree of Life is mine ! 
 
 In Adam all men died ; in Christ mankind 
 
 Are made alive, Christ God for evermore ! 
 
 God's tabernacle shall come down to men ; 
 
 With men the Lord will dwell and they shall be 
 
 His people, not the abject slaves of pride : 
 
 God shall be with you ruling ; all your tears, 
 
 let the God of Consolation dry ! 
 
 Death, man shall know no longer ; sorrow cease, 
 
4i0 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Grief and all pain, pass gradually away ! 
 Throughout all worlds, the Curse away shall die !" 
 
 These saying, onward hence, effulgent, Christ 
 To hell's portcuUis'd doors tremendously : 
 Girded with steel and iron-studded, they 
 Were in a wall of mountainous stones built in : 
 Upon their ramparts, all the kites of hell. 
 And o'er the bastion'd towers and outer domes 
 Ten-circled, all the fiend-begotten and 
 The hellish Furies that had wings to waft 
 Themselves aloft, Hell's banner-cry peal forth ; 
 Ramping from out their rugged throats war-deep : 
 Who knocks at the red gates like that ?• Who knocks ! 
 Who with one fulminating thunderbolt 
 Bursts them right in? Hell at the summons thought 
 To open were there time ; but that one huge 
 Twelve-bolted thunder through the door went straight. 
 Straight in and Death transfix'd ! Th' Undying Worm, 
 Beelzebub, and Night, Chaos as well, 
 The Dir-se, and all the Rebellious, fly. 
 Dragging the boastful Lucifer with them : 
 By Death and Sin, he swore the Lord to meet 
 Out, out pour the Hadean fires and smoke ; 
 Unrepresentable in blackness here : 
 So in the gulf Tonquin the dread typhoon 
 Edged coppery and black, is loosen'd to 
 A raging wind ; but that aside with blast 
 Of breath, or backward driven, I saw, great God 
 
THE CURISTIAD. 
 
 The prison-house of Darkness made for souls 
 
 Behind th' infernal gates : untiring, Sin 
 
 Had hollow'd out and there made ample room 
 
 For every soul that was inclay'd on earth : 
 
 Such forcing of those gates, might well disturb 
 
 The siren in her work and her estop : 
 
 All the Redeem'd their dear Deliverer own 
 
 Forth as they hasten, Jesu Christ ! to Thee ! 
 
 " Salvation cometh from the Lord !" cry they ; 
 
 " Lord God Almighty who hast saved us from 
 
 The bands of sin, captivity, and death ; 
 
 To Thee, Lord God Almighty ; Father, Son, 
 
 And Holy Spirit ; which together live 
 
 And reign one God for evermore ; our praise !" 
 
 Thus they great praises gave ; all nations, kins, 
 Peoples, and tongues : then all the angels with 
 The elders and the cherubim fell down 
 Upon their faces worshipping and saying, 
 " Amen ! blessing and glory, wisdom and 
 Thanksgiving, honour, might, and power to God 
 For evermore :" " Amen !" the Blest return : 
 In tribulation every one was found 
 While in this flesh they testified for God ; 
 Hunger they shall no more, nor thirst, for Christ, 
 The Lamb, His living fountains giveth them ; 
 Wiped from their cheek all stain and sign of tears : 
 Again they cry " Almighty God we give 
 Thee thanks for such assumptive love and power ! 
 
 441 
 
442 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Thy wrath is come to punishment on Death ! 
 Those who Thy worlds destroy'd are put in fear ! " 
 
 Death unto Sin cries out ; Sin to the Grave 
 Cried shrieking;, while Death blackens but the more : 
 How fain would he depart ! that Death were 
 Unmade ! that he uncreated were ! 
 But Death was deathlessly in torture fix'd ; 
 To agony all his inbeing writhes : 
 Down upon him, while all God's angels stand 
 Far off with the Eedeem'd, Vengeance swoops down 
 In a most swounding storm and all the stings 
 Of Death tears mercilessly out : what stings ! ' 
 what soul-stinging, adderous stings they were ! 
 Down trampling Sin inexorably, the two 
 Are chain'd by Vengeance to the dreadful wheels 
 Which over hell's black verge so matchless pass'd : 
 Hades shrinks into nothing God to see ; 
 But the foundations shall not sink till all 
 The damn'd therein are unto powder ground : 
 The tongueless Echoes that the damn'd had made 
 Tongueless, then shouted out : Omnipotence, 
 Arm'd with destruction o'er the ruin'd heaps, 
 O'er the Serbonian bogs of glassiness, 
 Through wildernesses waste with wasted waste, 
 And over the abandon'd mountains drove 
 Invincible, till vacancy alone 
 Seem'd the incarnate spirit of the place ; 
 Glowing for ever against God, but fled 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 443 
 
 For ever as God drove : a channel dead, 
 His passage leaves behind ; the sable air 
 More sable turn'd thereto as on pass'd God. 
 
 As the infernal princes fled, the yet 
 Untouched oceans of asphaltum they 
 To inextinguishable fire let out : 
 Out they all belch at once : well then it was 
 That no one follow' d ; none but only God 
 The Gates of Terror enter'd ; God alone ; 
 Could He their stores of fury smile to scorn ? 
 Thought the Archgerent, taking heart ; enraged 
 To move another step, though even the Shape 
 That is descriptionless would hurry on : 
 Had he the dsedal cups inswill'd unto 
 Their last intoxicating vinous drop ; 
 Had he, not quaff'd but made himself quite drunk 
 With the most potent wine, no joy were his 
 Equal to the delusive hope took in 
 When this extravagance suggested was 
 Unto his almost fainting, dying, heart : 
 To all his seraphim he instant calls : 
 Rueful heard they, as wandering spirits hear 
 The sorcerer call them back into their corse 
 For a confinement ; but none disobey'd 
 The summons of the absolutest King : 
 In dark magnificence they enthrone about 
 The crown'd Archgerent ; even as God, lift high : 
 Bespeaking Night with confidence, they were 
 
444 THE CHBISTIAD. 
 
 Somewhat restored to confidence ; the Worm, 
 
 Beelzebub, and Chaos, drawing nigh : 
 
 Nigh also draw the Eegents of his realm ; 
 
 Haraphon crown'd with iron horror on 
 
 A whity horse, arm'd with a bow enough 
 
 Vesta to bring from out her orbed place : 
 
 Great welded thunders haught Togarmah brings ; 
 
 And millions follow him ; horses like men 
 
 In countenance fierce, lion-like all their teeth, 
 
 Their heads, like lions', crown'd, breastplated fire 
 
 Jacinth and brimstone theirs ; but still their strength 
 
 Was like a woman's hair, although one had 
 
 Seven heads, ten horns, and wrathful floods outpour'd : 
 
 Another, likewise crown'd, was, pard-like, horn'd ; 
 
 Fierce as a bear, lion-like was his mouth : 
 
 The third red dragon spake and fire outpour'd 
 
 In his wild indignation : other three 
 
 Were like unclean gigantic irogs ; intent 
 
 On Armageddon : one, a scarlet beast, 
 
 Fill'd with the names of Blasphemy, rides high ; 
 
 As if to stay Jehovah ; glorying 
 
 Much ; not for long, for God amongst them sent 
 
 Deaths, mournings, famines, rabid plagues rain'd down 
 
 In oceans full : the red agonies 
 
 That burn them up ! oh their bewilder' d eyes 
 
 The ululation of eternal woe 
 
 On all sides round : Hell lifted all his arms ; 
 
 Instant, they stiffen : Terror dies outright. 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 445 
 
 For double terror by the chance of one 
 
 Flash from God's anger ; instantly fell he ; 
 
 And fell regretted as a Spirit that 
 
 Was most indulged to this time ; beneath 
 
 The rolling chariot-wheels his carcase lay ; 
 
 Rivers on rivers from their bed boil up ; 
 
 Volcanoes, volumed fire and ashes pour ; 
 
 Like the Levantine, Greccan, Ponent, met 
 
 Together, winds all hurly burly come : 
 
 All the bold lightnings flash ; but none can reach. 
 
 None touch Almighty God : then adamant 
 
 No more was adamant ; and fire no more 
 
 Fire, but a most delicious sense of cold 
 
 Compared to what was now, too late for them 
 
 miserable gods, existent found ; 
 
 Whole hecatombs made there, myriads flying 
 
 Chaff-like, or like the fleetest ghosts before 
 
 A fiery hail-storm : as thin summer grass 
 
 Burnt underneath the sun, blazes to fire 
 
 A moment and is not ; so burn the trees. 
 
 The forests, of the place; leaf-stripp'd, charr'd black. 
 
 Before enkindled wrath interminable : 
 
 what were all our warriors to Him 
 
 Who conquers, as if none before had fought ? 
 
 Pity fled ravish'd where Avengement came 
 
 Gorging to satiation : Rage seems blind. 
 
 Though all his eyeballs flash excessive bright : 
 
 Towers, like great ocean clifis, rapacious, grim, 
 
446 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 The dread, the Second Death ; now first reveal' d, 
 Striding colossus ! animated black 
 To fear as God's vicegerent murderer : 
 All who his face beheld, whirlwinded go ; 
 Or fall to idiotcy to see the wide- 
 Stretching, the all-wide reaching, the most wide 
 Waxing, repleteful Horror of the day : 
 Death that death seem'd, and Sin, and total hell 
 Were more than dizzened by the damned daze 
 His doing : with no helping wings, nor feet, 
 But something that were more, unrein'd, uncurb' d, 
 He ran ; or, reeling, roll'd at every step, 
 Exploding like three fiery mountains ; or 
 Three comets when their inmass'd matter burns 
 Intolerably hot till space is fiU'd 
 With the innumerable splinters theirs : 
 His uncial character was branded in 
 The spirit of the Damn'd by Wrath, who with 
 A legal torture used the dreadful stamp 
 Which was his own peculiar signet there : 
 
 Woe, woe to all the self-destroyed there ; 
 The self-destroyed angels : search all worlds, 
 And what excuses can be found for them ? 
 Once the dear minions of deific Grace, 
 The blessed favourites of the heavenly King : 
 Absurd in their intent, insane to fool 
 Themselves before His throne, how crush'd their hope. 
 And oh ! how all undone in excellence : 
 
THE CHUISTIAD. 447 
 
 Out from their slime withdrawn and saved, mankind 
 Do hasten, while Abhorrence overtakes 
 The fracted Prince anarchic ; all his arms 
 Confused, his forces broke, battalions turn'd 
 With him to an exceeding horror, shame ; 
 Levell'd unto the ground, to dust reduced ; 
 The ashes of despair on all their crowns 
 Heap'd up, beyond all complemental terms : 
 Still, Muse, the tale prolong-, o'erstepping all 
 The bounds of language that the worlds may lose 
 No tittle of what knowledge God hath shown 
 Unto His servant : call, once more, to mind 
 Their counsel 'gainst His majesty ; their act 
 Most diabolical on man ; their whole 
 Performance since the memorable day 
 Rebellious ; and, ! who can tell what weight 
 Of punishment they deserve ; the traitors who 
 Practised deception on the heavens, and who 
 The mint of God broke open in our sphere. 
 Boasting, base counterfeits ! themselves as God 
 Unto the Effigy Divine, our Sire : 
 the deniers ; who did they deny ! 
 Conceitors ; what absurdity is yours ! 
 Stars, starless made ; ye darken'd suns ; gods, lorn 
 And disinherited to infamy ; 
 How are ye scatter'd far and wide as nought. 
 And where your Princedom at this awful time ! 
 Like a north-eastern wind by more than a 
 
448 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 South-western hurricane opposed, that Prince 
 
 Lift, thrice, a hand ; thrice down it sinks in the 
 
 Attempt, the mad attempt, on victory : 
 
 Big dismal words in his blaspheming mouth 
 
 Of daunt defiance run vibrating up. 
 
 Up from the very roots unto the tip 
 
 Of his most brassy tongue, yet no one heard 
 
 If anything were said : but parley none 
 
 Was tolerated then when up they leap'd, 
 
 The thunders blacten'd and the lightnings fierce 
 
 Till now reserved for him : roar they to see 
 
 The object and the end of all their hope : 
 
 Back right into itself, his spirit shrinks 
 
 Shaken ; and, if cowardly, he might feel. 
 
 Only one moment, an unworthy foe 
 
 God for Himself had chosen ; but the Lord 
 
 In Lucifer expected, and He found 
 
 The primest Angeldom, the most valid Prince, 
 
 Most stalwart, stoutest, strongest, boldest, brave. 
 
 And irresistible of angels made : 
 
 He shakes, he shudders ; but the Anarch shook 
 
 And sliudder'd at what God well might surprise : 
 
 He shrinks, but all the holy hosts far off 
 
 Continually thought from God to fly j 
 
 Triumphing in such terror that the Seven, 
 
 Yea, the seven great Archangels dreaded that 
 
 To see, and dreadful felt in victory ; 
 
 On the Prince-King the hottest ashes shower'd. 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 The seraphim enthroning him drove down 
 Discomfited and fallen ; if not dead 
 Blasted to dying pains that laet for aye : 
 
 Thus on that Day of Days, alone, fought God 
 That hattle ; blazing ten dread Judgments down 
 Upon them with ten thousand comets ; Hell 
 Flees fainting, failing ; all but one in hell, 
 But One ! before the Lord of Victories : 
 He the proud Prince, the anarch King, resists ; 
 All the deep sluices of infernal hate 
 Open'd, and all the rage that could be haU'd : 
 Should he who diced with God for Empire ? fly ! 
 Though disenthroned and all the living spokes 
 Of his war-chariot were to pieces gone. 
 Never ! no never ! never ! What although 
 His armies are undone ; they were undone 
 Before : come Death ! even the Second Death 
 Preferr'd before dishonourable shame : 
 These are the Anarch's thoughts as he retires 
 Like one close baited, where his tyrant Power 
 Is buUt J there Night receives him and would fain 
 Put-to the palace portals when, behold ! 
 A sharper point than Night had ever felt 
 Pierces her to the heart and blocks them up 
 With her dread carcase, once-for-all smote there. 
 
 for the words of an immortal fire, 
 Forged new from horror ; red, red-hottest fire ! 
 Exhausted language faileth ; all the art 
 
 G G 
 
 449 
 
450 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 And consequence of all the Tongues of men 
 
 Are nothing for such celebration as 
 
 This Theme demands ; affected, faint, childlike, 
 
 All their most forcible expressions seem 
 
 Before the might of gods ; before the might 
 
 Of Him whom deities might fear to serve, 
 
 How pale, effete, unworthy, all the choice 
 
 Flowers of Rhetoric and verbal force 
 
 Known to mankind must be ! But from the flat 
 
 And arid waste of time, the Muse which fledged 
 
 Our pinions into heaven invention brings 
 
 To us ; so high imaginative that 
 
 The ears of nations and the mind of gods 
 
 Shall joy to list, while Heaven approves, the Song 
 
 Of Everlasting Victory to Christ : 
 
 Immortal Victor, right against the high 
 And awful towers and wide-spread domes of pride 
 He comes with countless thunders ! Hell, though deaf 
 With the clamantous noises of the time. 
 Hears all their fulmination ; through the deep 
 The bones of Hell did rattle that to hear. 
 Beside themselves quite gone : Blank looks to blank 
 Out from the sepulchre of Space ; amazed, 
 Astonied, petrified, and sold to Fear : 
 Man-of-Arms, Man-God, in arms upon 
 Thine Enemy so falling ! thou King 
 From Bozra ! strains devout were Klopstock's, but. 
 Great Liberator ! Great Arbitrator ! 
 
THE CHBISTIAD. 451 
 
 High-crown'd Accomplisher of Destiny ! 
 Trumps louder, thou, Victorious King ! shalt have. 
 The flame rebellious quell' d, th' Hadean Prince 
 Under Thy iron heel for ever stamp'd, 
 The Serpent's head crush'd altogether in ! 
 Against the high and awful towers and wide- 
 Spread domes of Pride comes He : as potters' ware, 
 They all are dash'd to pieces when He comes : 
 Down to the last foundation, with a crash 
 They fall so loud that marvel not if he 
 Who heard such fall tremendous fail in ear : 
 But thou dear Muse ! hast made amends for that 
 By gifts and graces all beyond my boast ; 
 Beyond the riches of that Phrygian prince 
 Who, with egregious ears, turn'd all he touch'd 
 At once to sterling gold ; Pactolus rolls 
 Over the shining sands, but these alone 
 Sustain his memory, ours. Muse ! shall last 
 When Pactolus hath no more water left. 
 Its gold esteem'd but as the river's mud ; 
 No fabulous Silenus to my hearth 
 Was gaily welcomed ; to our fireside came 
 One who the old Thymbrisan god excell'd 
 As much in music as in heavenly grace ; 
 And I with her have a perpetual joy, 
 Learned in all the learning that is taught 
 By the first masters whom the Lord employs ; 
 All Nature's volume open lies to us, 
 GO 2 
 
452 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 God's inspiration in our mind and heart. 
 
 Thus the Almighty Lord and Victor waged 
 His warfare that dread time ; absolving fear 
 Of all offences ; cumbering all hell 
 With ruin upon ruin ; this the last 
 Most dreadful ruin that Almighty Force 
 Unto itself could claim and claiming have : 
 Then all the wretched crew, so self-deceived ! 
 Bolt up on end their hair, aU in excess 
 Of frenzy horrible ; the mighty dead. 
 Yet dead not, unconsumable such a crew, 
 Saw God the Supreme Lord enter at will 
 Their last saturnine shrine to overturn 
 The violated Throne whereon sate high 
 The grand, the still magnific Lucifer, 
 King even to the last, encrown'd beyond 
 The power of all angels, hell, and death : 
 spectacle sublime ! the Hadean King, 
 The great Archgerent of the Heavens, the Lord 
 Of the Terrestrial Orbs, his residence 
 Keeping God-like ; although the Second Death 
 Reckons upon him as a prey, and God, 
 His Lord and Master, the Eternal, Sole, 
 And Only King, Sovereign-mighty Prince, 
 Almighty, Omnipotent, Absolute, 
 Victorious for Ever, stood in all 
 The wordless terror of His wrathful arms 
 And His exceeding judgments ready there : 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 453 
 
 The gTandest Spirit that God's word had call'd 
 
 To a participation in the light 
 
 And power of Heaven, the boldest Prince on high, 
 
 By far the brightest blazing, high above 
 
 All the chief ministers of Light and Life 
 
 The bravest, most accomplish' d, perfect. Prince, 
 
 Would not, he could not ! all unworthy die : 
 
 His last and priceless thunder had been spent. 
 
 Deliberately spent, before that Prince 
 
 Within his solemn mansion set the foot; 
 
 How he regretted chaos when forced round. 
 
 And with such fell effect upon him brought. 
 
 Most ruinously ; more he now regrets 
 
 What thunders in his lustihood were made : 
 
 If he with them, full-handed had but come 
 
 Against Jehovah at the first, not on 
 
 That scorn'd and sinking throne Lucifer sate. 
 
 The Throne of Thrones had surely been mine own ! 
 
 Bilious his lot Libecchian breath becomes, 
 
 And, infinite in mourning, up a groan, 
 
 An awful Groan, makes at his tearless eyes: 
 
 Red bloodshot they and bleeding, but, alway 
 
 To terror proof, that groan was down suppress'd 
 
 Moaning unto the bottom of his soul : 
 
 And yet no grief was there, but rage alone. 
 
 Gone hoarse with the inevitable time. 
 
 " And now relate, nor droop ! the iron strings 
 Strikeout!" "Calliope! I hear:" "The iron, 
 
454 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 All the great iron strings, at once strike them, 
 And mighty strike them now ! " " Or all the reeds 
 In all the rivers, shrilly piping, loud, 
 Shall change the old asinine name for mine, 
 High goddess ! Zoilus, at hand, peers out 
 For us, as once for Homer : let him peep .; 
 Such strings as ours as yet were never tuned, 
 And critic fools from that shall trembling fly 
 Which daze and stupify the dead to hear." 
 
 Oh, unto what had Lucifer aspired ! 
 And yet Almightiness before him paused 
 Abstaining, as surprised ; admiring, or 
 Wondering that any so collected could 
 Receive and dare it : all the hoary-white 
 And blacken'd arbalists that Vengeance grasp'd 
 Within His red right hand ; reverberating 
 Thunders and lightnings lanced, shafts and what stood 
 For chains and scourges, down were dropp'd ; dropp'd all 
 That stood for other arms to God the Lord ; 
 And all that God made-man, so made, might wear. 
 Helm plumed, breastplate, and that magnific shield 
 Wbich three fierce suns blazed out ; all disappear' d. 
 And God before the great Arch-anarch stood 
 In His uncover'd Person : Evil saw 
 Its evil in astonishment, woe-gone. 
 And flinging up her hands, the stony heart 
 Of Lucifer to horror split ; he fell. 
 His eyes like burning coals and all his limbs 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 4.56 
 
 Eternally unhinged : who that Face 
 Could see and live ? transcendent Majesty 
 And Might, so magnified as none may e'er 
 Depict, and Lumination no one stands ! 
 The roaring of the lion and the voice 
 Of the fierce lion and the lion's jaws 
 At once were broken, Death and Satan vile. 
 
 Through Pandemonium Destruction sweeps 
 As with a besom all the Wicked ; all 
 The shuddering sprites and satirists of God, 
 Put all before Destruction : Chaos last 
 God helps, putting before Him ; gorging Hell, 
 Made overfull, with ruin ; all the gloom 
 Of hell condensed together, all the fires 
 Condensing drove on that most blasphemous rout, 
 Unqualified in quantity and pain : 
 They thought to fly, they more than fled ; never 
 Went they so fleet had God not added to 
 All their own proper wings measureless speed 
 Before what burnt, some ploughshare like, close aft. 
 Hell like a little hillock overturn'd : 
 Thus altogether mass'd, his hold and fane. 
 His shrine, his Throne and all, Hell ponderous went 
 Before the wrath which all its entrails tore 5 
 Supreme Revenge behind, upon the back 
 Urging hell straight beyond unto the Pit 
 Without a bottom : o'er its edge, blank then 
 Look the Rebellious, eddying of brain, 
 
456 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Stopp'd short, arrested fearful that to see : 
 
 Necessity itself was stopp'd by that ! 
 
 But who the Supreme Will and equal Might 
 
 Of the Potential King withstands ? although 
 
 Worse horror stare them in the face than flames 
 
 Out from the magazines of perfect wrath : 
 
 A tragic sound, one unappealing groan, 
 
 Then dark and deep down all those spirits go, 
 
 Imperative down go, air-emptied Lake 
 
 Of Fire ! right into the Bottomless Pit : 
 
 Into the all Unfathomable Pit 
 
 Thunderous go down, amazed, compell'd, fated. 
 
 All the phosphoric sprites Typhurgan ; aU 
 
 Their forms unform'd for ever : with them down, 
 
 In climax'd horror. Pride and Fury go, 
 
 Scowling to griesliness distilling fear : 
 
 And baleful down with them, down go he shall ! 
 
 God's great Adversary and Pestilence ; 
 
 Misery, Darkness, an eternal Hate 
 
 Along with Lucifer, down, down they go — 
 
 Not ended, no ! not ended ; in his hands 
 
 The battle-axe ; remorseless ; in distinct 
 
 Defiance ; black, stonily fis'd his eyes. 
 
 Though woe-struck when that lake was seen by him : 
 
 Then God a Seal, originally made 
 
 For Matter but appropriate to Mind, 
 
 Took and with all the unused thunders drove 
 
 That wondrously inviolable Stamp, 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 457 
 
 Fixation in itself, upon their head : 
 
 Thus was all war among the gods etern 
 Victoriously brought unto the end : 
 When finish' d, the cserulean Chariot turns 
 Triumphant back, diffused a brighter day : 
 The golden Zones omnific glory saw ; 
 Rebrightening ; and the shining Gates of heaven, 
 Open although they were expectant held, 
 Would open wider to receive their King : 
 With acclamation from the Temple where 
 The Testamental Ark was always kept. 
 The Saints unto the First Begotten from 
 The Dead, their Great Deliverer, joyful came : 
 High sounding praises, the celestial hosts 
 Unto the Conqueror raise : to Him, the Prince 
 Of all terrestrial and celestial worth, 
 Glory, praise, power, and dominion, they 
 Most solemnly devout, adoring give : 
 " Salvation come, let all the worlds rejoice ! " 
 Entering heaven, they sung ; " Captivity 
 Is captive led ; a prisoner, Lord ! to Thee ! 
 Let every world fear God ; to Him belongs 
 All glory : King of Saints, who shall not fear 
 And glorify Thy Holy Name for aye ? 
 Thy judgments are made manifest ! " Thus sung they 
 Through all the six external circles of 
 The Heaven of Heaven which their concourse awaits : 
 
 But while this last and crowning action pass'd, 
 
458 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Though brief in time unto the gods it seem'd, 
 
 For centuries to man the period stood ; 
 
 Those centuries calamitous to the Jews, 
 
 The compassers and murderers of Christ : 
 
 Such desolation as the world ne'er saw 
 
 Brought upon any nation, them befell 
 
 Who all the righteous blood, from Abel to 
 
 Our Saviour shed, brought on their stifFneck'd head : 
 
 Titus his eagles from the Tiber, loosed 
 
 Against thee, hapless Salem ! made a scoff 
 
 And byeword to the scoffing Heathen world : 
 
 Rome, the crown'd Mistress, unto Gaul, where they 
 
 Adgistis and false Euris served as gods. 
 
 And to the farther isles where Druids sway'd, 
 
 Pass'd, eastward, to the Indus, claiming all 
 
 The swamps of Babylon and Nineveh ; 
 
 Even to Susa where the Prophet lay : 
 
 To her the sites of older empires fall, 
 
 Until, Eternal, Rome herself supposed: 
 
 So thought the Pharaohs in their pride of place : 
 
 Now, where is Roma ? Foxes gleer from out 
 
 The casements of her houses ; prowl the wolves 
 
 About the high Palatinate ; her courts 
 
 Served wolves to litter in ; the Circus served. 
 
 The Campus Martins and Suburra, grass'd ; 
 
 Where too Msecenas supp'd, Augustus quaff'd : 
 
 The Portico encumber' d, cumber' d too 
 
 The Capitol itself with prostrate shafts, 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 459 
 
 O'er the Tarpeian tower wing vultures ; in 
 
 Her pagan sanctuaries their young were hatch'd : 
 
 The Senatorian with litter full, 
 
 All the Campagna soon became a pool ; 
 
 Its villas all fell in ; roofs, walla, and all : 
 
 Roma thus visited, so all her gods 
 
 Their visitation had : Bel bow'd to gTound ; 
 
 Nebo stoop'd doubled up, and Migdol fail'd 
 
 Sabsean folly ; as Ophion fail'd, 
 
 Eurynome, and Ops, Pelasgian hope : 
 
 Others still older, ere the Pleiades quired, 
 
 Or Hebon, burning for Irene, froze 
 
 Diceous forlorn where they Ephaistos taught 
 
 And worshipp'd Zeus as the Lord of Light : 
 
 The cave and realm where Egyaleus sway'd 
 
 JRemain, and where Minerva ruled a town 
 
 Riseth ; but not the Parthenon : no one 
 
 To Eleusina seeks ; none there wait on 
 
 The mysteries of Ceres, kindling fire 
 
 From ^tna in a metaphoric sense : 
 
 The Oracles are dumb ; One mightier than 
 
 Alcides, the Delphinian tripod seized : 
 
 Elide no temple boasts ; wave the rank weeds 
 
 Where Jupiter's once shone the boast of Greece : 
 
 For him no statuary carves ; for him 
 
 No limner painteth excellently : where 
 
 Throughout these worlds religious mind exists. 
 
 Where heavenly light may shine, orisons rise 
 
460 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Jesu, my God ! Lord ! Master ! unto Thee ! 
 In every voice that sways our kindred orbs, 
 Sweet as the Attic or where Owhyee 
 The halcyon ocean studs, the morning prayer 
 And vesper'd thank arise, dear Lord ! to Thee ! 
 Grsecia's gods are gone : no more, disguised 
 Olympians love or lust in all our world : 
 Upon mount Latmos shines the moon, but no 
 Diana to her shepherd boy steals on 
 The holy beam of night : the Paphian bower 
 Runs wild, none offering doves to Venus there : 
 Theoricons no more can Pallas boast ; 
 No more CEneides : Cecropides, 
 Leontides, Antiochides, nor grave 
 Panathees are kept : no archon-king 
 Voteth the olive or the laurel crown : 
 Erigone no orgies hath to her 
 Observed or kept ; tbe votaries made drunk : 
 Scierian f^tes are obsolete ; all the f^tes 
 To Hecate given under the lotus wild : 
 Where are Zamolxis, Mithra, Karedwen, 
 The arkite goddess, Cambdos, Chronos ? where 
 The idol that at Denderah was served ? 
 Cold Echo answers, " Where ? " the plougb pass'd o'er 
 Patrician hearths, all the penates broke 
 And utterly overthrown : Fabricius, 
 Curius, nor Scipio, is claim'd in kin ; 
 Julius is but a name, his line extinct 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 461 
 
 Like theirs : no lemures where th' unburied lie 
 
 Denied a little earth, obscurely flit : 
 
 The Erynnys change their names ; no Atropos 
 
 Poor mortals terrifies with fatal shears : 
 
 No altars smoke while victims bleed to gods 
 
 Long since discarded : all the herd of Nile, 
 
 Sate, Isis, Phthah, Myrionymnia, 
 
 Are gone, their o'erturn'd fanes to lime reduced : 
 
 Howl'd those who served them when destruction came ; 
 
 Hearts melted ; fear and sorrow, pangs and pains. 
 
 As when a woman travaileth,-upon 
 
 Their votaries in anger fearful came : 
 
 Now doleful creatures occupy their fanes ; 
 
 Owls, dragons, where the augurs stood and where 
 
 Libation out they pour'd, do occupy ; 
 
 Foul Asmodean creatures there possess'd 
 
 By the just indignation of the Lord. 
 
 O'er the Osmanlis, pales the Crescent which 
 False Antichrist in Mahomet conceived : 
 Eternal horror his and silence like 
 The dead, no conclamation raised, no friend 
 Attends his sordid couch : so let him die ! 
 So let him perish who did waste the earth. 
 Warring against the Witnesses : all birds 
 That spiritually fly, together flock, 
 What meat he raven' d, and his body, yours ! 
 
 To thee invictress Faith ! the idols fell : 
 Thy voice was hfted up in Christ the Lord ; 
 
462 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 The revelation of His Promise brought 
 
 Into the worlds, all wondering, by Thee ! 
 
 What record Faith bore high, and testimony, 
 
 Blessed are they who heard and faithful keep : 
 
 Grace to the worlds and peace was preach'd from Him 
 
 Who is the Faithful Witness ; from the dead 
 
 The First-Begotten ; and the Prince of Kings : 
 
 Who loved mankind His blood to shed for us, 
 
 Making us regal priests to God on high, 
 
 " Glory, dominion unto Him !" Faith cried : 
 
 " Behold He cometh with the Power of Heaven ; 
 
 And every eye shall see whom devils spear'd : 
 
 Wail Him, ye kindreds who their idols serve : 
 
 The Alpha, Omega, Beginning, and 
 
 The Ending, God made Man ; who Was, and Is, 
 
 And is to Gome ; every World, attend ! 
 
 He is the First and Last ; the Son of Man, 
 
 Clothed with the garments of Humanity 
 
 But girt about with Everlasting Love : 
 
 Like a sharp two-edged sword, His words shall cut 
 
 Asunder all the wicked : well knows He 
 
 The labour and great patience of His Saints ; 
 
 Hear what the Holy Spirit saith by Faith ! 
 
 ' To him that overcometh, Christ will give 
 
 Fruit from the Tree of paradisic life ; 
 
 Their tribulation, works, and poverty, 
 
 Christ knows ; but they are rich beyond all price j 
 
 Theirs is the Crown of everlasting Joy : 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 463 
 
 The Second Death has over them no power: 
 
 Those which hold fast His Name, and hold in Faith, 
 
 The hidden manna have and shall enjoy ; 
 
 And they the Signet of the Lord shall wear : 
 
 Their works and charity, service and faith. 
 
 Their patience, all their works, well knoweth He : 
 
 Hold fast till Jesus comes ! for who fast holds 
 
 And overcometh, keeping all His words. 
 
 Over the idols ruling power shall have, 
 
 Arm'd with a rod of iron with which to break 
 
 In shivers the deceitful shams of time ; 
 
 The morning Star, Lucifer, unto them 
 
 Through all his works made subject : therefore be 
 
 Watchful ; strengthen your faith ; remember how 
 
 Ye have received and heard ; hold fast, that you 
 
 May worthy be in company to shine 
 
 With Him whose eyes are Truth, His garments Light : 
 
 In the dread hour when the temptation comes, 
 
 Jesus His Saints shall keep : He quickly comes 
 
 To raise them up as pillars to the Lord ; 
 
 The name of Jesus, one with Thine, Lord God ! 
 
 Upon them in the heavenly Place inscribed : 
 
 Gold tried in the fire from Shiloh win ; 
 
 His innocency take, and faith receive : 
 
 In light, ensalve the eye that see you may 
 
 The love of Jesus in rebuke ; and when 
 
 Chastening His Sons, the Lord correcteth them : 
 
 He standeth at the door and knocks ; all those 
 
464 
 
 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Who hear His voice and ope the heart to Him, 
 The company Divine shall surely joy : 
 To those with whom Christ sups familiarly, 
 His Throne is not denied ; but they shall sit 
 There with the Son of Man and God, on high :' " 
 
 These, Holy Spirit ! are Thy words ; gone forth 
 Even through Negroland : Niger hath heard 
 What made the gods of Barbary rotten wood. 
 While the diviners there espy a light 
 Diviner than Thales or Zeno thought : 
 These, haughty rabbins mention but with scorn 
 Satisfied in the Talmuds ; What are they ? 
 What all their Cabala, since light and life 
 Are in such heavenly sentences our own ! 
 The ethical philosophies of Stoa, 
 Are nothing worth before the Word of God : 
 The great Republic there proposed, transcends 
 The dream of Plato ; the Utopia there 
 Is no concoction of a gentle mind : 
 Before Jehovah, high, and low, rich, poor, 
 Learn'd, and unlearn' d, the monarch, and the slave. 
 Are equall'd by necessity of Law ; 
 And, none the less, in Justice all Divine : 
 Even the Esquimaux, so humble deem'd, 
 The path of Life may tread and Heaven attain 
 Equally with the learn'd accomplish'd sage ; 
 And every day but hasteneth the time 
 When all our earth and every world redeem'd. 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 465 
 
 The knowledge of the Lord shall cover, as 
 Incumbent waters overlay the deep : 
 
 For now, since Boma fail'd and Mahomet 
 Declines, the two great obstacles ; declines 
 Idolatry throughout what nations they 
 Did not affect : beyond, the western world, 
 North down to Mexico and Magellan's straits, 
 After the heavy judgments pour'd thereon 
 As lustral waters, Faith has good increase : 
 From wide Birmah to far Thibet, and thence 
 Unto the soft Mantchows j from Horn afar 
 To Comorin, thence to Kaffirland, the wrath 
 Divine must also burn in all the modes 
 Respectively effective unto faith : 
 Where also Brahma, Sceva, and Veeshnu, 
 With Lutzmee, lorded falsely, Juggernaut 
 Dies out ; his rites dishonour'd and betray'd : 
 She too whose gates long ages since were borne 
 As trophies to Ghuznee, the temple razed 
 By the fierce conqueror ; from his famous tomb 
 Despoil' d, these trophies are return'd ; but, who 
 Receives the gates of Somnauth ? Who is she ! 
 What o'er the universal worlds remain 
 Of idol gods, is but the senseless form, 
 The blank mortalities and skeleton things 
 Of most abominable falsities. 
 
 But thou Ephesus ; so glorious once ; 
 So planted ! thou and Smyrna ; Pergamos, 
 
466 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 And Thyatira ; Philadelphia ; dear 
 
 Sardis, and Laodicea ; seven in name ; 
 
 How were your honours lessen'd ! While you kept 
 
 Patience and your first love to Jesus, then 
 
 Your light might Asia win unto His sway : 
 
 Apostate falling, Christendom beholds 
 
 The ruination brought upon you all : 
 
 Against unfaithful Churches, stands opposed 
 
 One who can bind, or loose ; set up ; pluck down ; 
 
 Fatal to them the sworded Word of God : 
 
 To every man, according to his work 
 
 Christ giveth ; let the Churches God obey. 
 
 And my Country ! last and dearest theme ! 
 My much loved Country that infronts this world 
 Greatest and noblest ; whom the Lord appoints 
 Chiefest among all Nations ; crown'd the Queen 
 Of Time ; of war and peace, the Arbitress ; 
 Serenely rising First, Magnific, Free ; 
 Eeligion her immortal quest prefers, 
 And I am blest the message to translate : 
 With such an understanding as is thine, 
 Britannia will not turn the ear from what 
 God's spirit proffers while the poet writes : 
 Ruling both hemispheres ; observed by all 
 Nations ; and honour' d, nay almost obey'd ; 
 Lo the red Indians, up to Beehring's straits 
 Throughout Columbia, to thee with all 
 The eastern Tribes, from Gunga to Khiva, 
 
THE CHHISTIAD. 
 
 In humble expectation look and wait : 
 Wild though he be that Issachar, he rounds 
 His neck and loves Britannia's queenly hand ; 
 Suez is gifted, for one smile from thee : 
 Impotent Turkey hands the sacred keys 
 Of Zion unto thee, protesting, since 
 Her hour close draweth nigh, in England sole 
 Islam may justice find for honour's sake : 
 Now the celestial cities open stand, 
 Wide by invictrix Britain's armies forced j 
 Great tribute ofi'er'd : he who claims the sun 
 His brother, to the deaf Tartarian gods 
 Cried to save him ; One above them rules 
 Who nerves our arm and victory ordains : 
 Queen of the North and South, th' admiring world 
 To thee for wisdom comes and every grace ; 
 Beatitude of safety in thy arms : 
 Thy trophies fill the earth ; thy martial airs 
 Follow the hours through the engirdled world 
 Continual so that no sunrise can come. 
 Nor sunset, on the Empire own'd by thee : 
 Spine of all Government ! Axle of State ! 
 Thine is the prime upholding power on earth ; 
 And fortune seems thy own. Napoleon feU'd : 
 Greater than was Napoleon, sons are thine j 
 Nor shall they fail through ages : mighty sons 
 Shall bear thy banner, Arrogance put down ; 
 The haughty into bondsmen brought by them ; 
 
 H H 2 
 
 467 
 
468 
 
 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Proud satraps broken, nabobs htirl'd from off 
 
 Their thrones ; those kings and emperors brought low 
 
 Which shook the nations and mankind destroy'd : 
 
 Thus in thy House for ever thou shalt dwell, 
 
 Filling the world with cities ; branching out. 
 
 Like thine own oak, a shelter to mankind, 
 
 If God be welcome to thy heart and mind : 
 
 Zealous in duty and in all good works 
 
 Be thou ; the unction of dehght and joy 
 
 Gracefully shining on thy favour' d head : 
 
 let the patience and the faith of saints 
 
 Prevail through all thy territorial might ! 
 
 The Everlasting Gospel thus shall be 
 
 Preach' d, more and more effectually to all 
 
 The nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples here ; 
 
 Until the world fear God and give to Him 
 
 The glory which is God's undoubted right : 
 
 Great, marvellous, are His works ; most just and true 
 
 All the Almighty's ways : thou King of saints ! 
 
 Who shall not fear and glorify Thy Name? 
 
 All nations. Lord ! shall come and worship Thee, 
 
 For lo Thy judgments manifested, are : 
 
 The vials of Thy wrath, fulfilment had 
 
 Upon all those who shed the blood of saints 
 
 And prophets ; blood perforce they all must drink : 
 
 Even so. Lord God Almighty ! always true 
 
 And righteous are Thy judgments : blest are they 
 
 Who watch and guard on all their actions keep, 
 
THE CHBI8TIAD. 
 
 Lest they appear defiled and naked seem : 
 
 Salvation, glory, honour, power, to God 
 
 Who the rebellious angels rightly judged ; 
 
 Avenging all the worlds created good : 
 
 Cry Alleluia ! Alleluia cry 
 
 To God Omnipotent their Eeigning King ! 
 The loving Muses hail thy mighty name 
 
 Britannia ! high above the reach of time 
 
 Calliope will have that name incrown'd : 
 
 Goddess ! in joy and gladness it is done ; 
 
 Imperial Albion is the fear and pride 
 
 Of earth ; and all our future is assured : 
 
 Richer than those in Ezion-geber built 
 
 For the old trade of Ophir, fleets of ships 
 
 Gather the choicest corn and sweetest wine 
 
 To Albion from the tributary realms : 
 
 In governmental unity, she binds 
 
 All sects and parties to her loving heart : 
 
 In God's eternal providence secured, 
 
 Her arts and arms through all the world prevail : 
 
 On Britain princes wait, around her throng'd ; 
 
 Kings ofier gifts to her of costly gems 
 
 And curious collars of the finest gold : 
 
 Her towns are like gTeat palaces, o'er-fill'd 
 
 Extravagantly ; aU the steps thereof 
 
 Mark'd by some stately excellence its own : 
 
 Thus ,God hath raised Imperial Albion up. 
 
 Establishing to His delight our Power 
 
 469 
 
470 THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 Fat beeves and sheep the people eat, joyful 
 
 Drinking their wine; harts, fowls, our choicer food ; 
 
 Under his vine and fig-tree, every liege 
 
 Sits in security of lawful ease, 
 
 And right ; beyond the title held by earls, 
 
 And equall'd with the title even of Kings. 
 
 Thou too Augusta ! by the Nations bless'd ! 
 So tender-wise ! so royal-just ! the Lord 
 To thee and to thy princely Consort gives 
 The pledges of our high monarchal peace : 
 These ne'er shall fail, a trusty buckler theirs 
 Stronger than Vulcan for iEneas forged. 
 Integrity of heart, uprightness in 
 Their way, and promises made doubly sure : 
 Muse 1 at her footstool on Victoria wait, 
 Inscribing aU her queenly acts and deeds : 
 For far posterities write them ; she reigns. 
 Her hai the hill of Basan ; on their head, 
 Her enemies are wounded ; dogs lick up 
 Their blood : perfumed with cassia and myrrh 
 Her gold-wrought robes of Sovereignty are : 
 Her Service is of Love : too happy they 
 Who by our Queen are honour'd to attend : 
 Blessed Religion, our dear Empress guard ! 
 And bless the youthful voices in her hall 
 Born to the proud inheritance she sways : 
 All the dark traces of the fallen Powers, 
 The printings made and footmarks which on earth 
 
THE CHRISTIAD. 
 
 471 
 
 Remain from the infernal spirits, fade 
 Before the light and life in thee renew'd : 
 They gradually fade away from thee, 
 Religion ! Immortality thine own, 
 Wither to nothing aU the spectral forms 
 Of gods and nephilim ; from all the worlds 
 Sweep them for ever where the Anarch lies 
 Seal'd up with hell ; mere ashes made like these : 
 Then shall young Csesar, times of Light improve ; 
 The golden Ages ripening with him ! 
 
 And now let this historian ask from thee 
 Continual blessing : Hope and Faith have bless'd 
 His labours ; Charity with them injoin ! 
 Shortcomings there must needs be found in verse 
 So high inpitch'd that gods despaired the strain 
 Herein attempted : but for Thee, Lord God ! 
 Throned in the Heaven of Heaven, Lord God most High ! 
 This sounding lyre had been by thunder split ; 
 The bard annihilated that to hear : 
 Thou who judgest hearts and triest all 
 The reins of men ! before the Heavenly Throne 
 Thy lyrist stood in mourning such dread wars 
 To chronicle ; but death and hell should fail : 
 Mourning for gladness changed, at length the times 
 Of the refreshing from Thy face are come ; 
 After the rain it shineth ; and the worlds 
 Their youth renewing, let our grateful song 
 Mount up to heaven, and every kindred, tongue, 
 
^''2 THE CHHISTIAD. 
 
 And people, join the choral praise to Christ, 
 
 The Eesurrection of inburied worlds, 
 
 Their Hope, their Joy, and Everlasting Life ! 
 
 The sounding' wing of cherubim I hear ! 
 
 The glorious companies of Mahanaim 
 
 I see ! God's ladder is again replaced 
 
 Which from the orbs terrestrial mount on high ! 
 
 Now, in perspective light, millennial Love, 
 
 Prom paradise, Praxitelean shines, 
 
 Mnemosyne ! on our sight, to ecstasy : 
 
 Glorious in holiness art Thou Lord God ; 
 
 Fearful in praises ; wondrous all Thy works ; 
 
 I fall before Thee, Thou King of Saints! 
 
 Adoring : Thou who said'st to Gabriel from 
 
 The banks of Ulai, " Make him understand," 
 
 Deign to receive the harp attuned by him ; 
 
 Fit for the Song of Moses and the Lamb 
 
 When, with an abler hand, in heaven, I strike, 
 
 Jehovah, Everlasting King, to Thee ! 
 
 The King for Ever ; centred in Thy hand 
 
 All power which God the Son and Spirit crown'd ; 
 
 Death ended, all things subjugated by 
 
 The high Victorious Son j with Thee, Lord ! God ! 
 
 And the most Holy Spirit, One for aye. 
 
 — & — 
 
Cornell University Library 
 .H4C5 
 
 The Christiad. 
 
 3 1924 013 480 847