CHAPTER XXX.
SUNRISE.
Entranced in amazed ecstasy he lay quite quiet, . . afraid to speak or stir! This gentle Presence,—this fair, beseeching face, might vanish if he moved! So he dimly fancied, as he gazed up at her in mute wonder and worship, his devout eyes drinking in her saintly loveliness, from the deep burnished gold of her hair to the soft, white slimness of her prayerfully folded hands. And while he looked, old thoughts like home-returning birds began to hover round his soul,—sweet and dear remembrances, like the sunset lighting up the windows of an empty house, began to shine on the before semi-darkened nooks and crannies of his brain. Clearer and clearer grew the reflecting mirror of his consciousness,—trouble and perplexity seemed passing away forever from his mind, . . a great and solemn peace environed him, . . and he began to believe he had crossed the boundary of death and had entered at last into the Kingdom of Heaven! O let him not break this holy silence! … Let him rest so, with all the glory of that Angel-visage shed like summer sunbeams over him! … Let him absorb into his innermost being the exquisite tenderness of those innocent, hopeful, watchful, starry eyes whose radiance seemed to steal into the golden morning and give it a sacred poetry and infinite marvel of meaning! So he mused, gravely contented, … while all through the brightening skies overhead, came the pale, pink flushing of the dawn, like a far fluttering and scattering of rose-leaves. Everything was so still that he could hear his own heart beating forth healthful and regular pulsations, . . but he was scarcely conscious of his own existence,—he was only aware of the vast, beautiful, halcyon calm that encircled him shelteringly and soothed all care away.
Gradually, however, this deep and delicious tranquillity began to yield to a sweeping rush of memory and comprehension, … he knew WHO he was and WHERE he was,—though he did not as yet feel absolutely certain of life and life's so-called realities. For if the City of Al-Kyris, with all its vivid wonders, its distinct experiences, its brilliant pageantry, had been indeed a DREAM, then sorely it was possible he might be dreaming still! … Nevertheless he was able to gather up the fragments of lost recollection consecutively enough to realize, by gentle degrees, his actual identity and position in the world, . . he was Theos Alwyn, . . a man of the nineteenth century after Christ. Ah! thank God for that! … AFTER Christ! … not one who had lived five thousand years BEFORE Christ's birth! … And this quiet, patient Maiden at his side, . . who was she? A vision? … or an actually existent Being? Unable to resist the craving desire of his heart, he spoke her name as he now remembered it, . . spoke it in a faint, awed whisper.
"Edris!"
"Theos, my Beloved!"
O sweet and thrilling voice! more musical than the singing of birds in a sun-filled Spring!
He raised himself a little, and looked at her more intently:—she smiled,—and that smile, so marvellous in its pensive peace and lofty devotion, was as though all the light of an unguessed paradise had suddenly flashed upon his soul!
"Edris!" he said again, trembling in the excess of mingled hope and fear … "Hast thou then returned again from heaven, to lift me out of darkness? … Tell me, fair Angel, do I wake or sleep? … Are my senses deceived? Is this land a dream? … Am I myself a dream, and thou the only manifest sweet Truth in a world of drifting shadows! … Speak to me, gentle Saint! … In what vast mystery have I been engulfed? … in what timeless trance of soul-bewilderment? … in what blind uncertainty and pain? … O Sweet! … resolve my wordless wonder! Where have I strayed? … what have I seen? … Ah, let not my rough speech fright thee back to Paradise! … Stay with me! … comfort me! … I have lost thee so long! let me not lose thee now!"
Smiling still, she bent over him, and pressed her warm, delicate ringers lightly on his brow and lips. Then softly she rose and stood erect.
"Fear nothing, my beloved!" she answered, her silvery accents sending a throb of holy triumph through the air.. "Let no trouble disquiet thee, and no shadow of misgiving dim the brightness of thy waking moments! Thou hast slept ONE night on the Field of Ardath, in the Valley of Vision!—but lo! the Night is past!".. and she pointed toward the eastern horizon now breaking into waves of rosy gold, "Rise! and behold the dawning of thy new Day!"
Roused by her touch, and fired by her tone and the grand, unworldly dignity of her look and bearing, he sprang up, . . but as he met the full, pure splendor of her divine eyes, and saw, wavering round her hair, a shining aureole of amber radiance like a wreath of woven sunbeams, his spirit quailed within him, . . he remembered all his doubts of her,—his disbelief, . . and falling at her feet, he hid his face in a shame that was better than all glory,—a humiliation that was sweeter than all pride.
"Edris! Immortal Edris!".. he passionately prayed, "As thou art a crowned saint in Heaven, shed light on the chaos of my soul! From the depths of a penitence past thought and speech I plead with thee! Hear me, my Edris, thou who art so maiden-meek, so tender-patient! … hear me, help me, guide me…I am all thine! Say, didst thou not summon me to meet thee here upon this wondrous Field of Ardath?—did I not come hither according to thy words?—and have I not seen things that I am not able to express or understand? Teach me, wise and beloved one! … I doubt no more! I know Myself and Thee:—thou art an angel,—but I! … alas, what am I? A grain of sand in thy sight and in God's, . . a mere Nothing, comprehending nothing,—unable even to realize the extent of my own nothingness! Edris, O Edris! … THOU canst not love me! … thou mayst pity me perchance, and pardon, and bless me gently in Christ's dear Name! … but love! … THY love! … Oh let me not aspire to such heights of joy, where I have no place, no right, no worthiness!"
"No worthiness!" echoed Edris! … what a rapture trembled through her sweet caressing voice!—"My Theos, who is so worthy to win back what is thine own, as thou? All Heaven has wondered at thy voluntary exile,—thy place in God's supernal Sphere has long been vacant, . . thy right to dwell there, none have questioned, … thy throne is empty—thy crown unclaimed! Thou art an Angel even as I! … but thou art in bonds while I am free! Ah, how sad and strange it is to me to see thee here thus fettered to the Sorrowful Star, when, countless aeons since, thou mightest have enjoyed full liberty in the Eternal Light of the everlasting Paradise!"
He listened, … a strong, sweet hope began to kindle in him like flame, . . but he made no answer. Only he caught and kissed the edge of her garment, . . its soft gray cloudy texture brushed his lips with the odorous coolness of a furled roseleaf. She seemed to tremble at his action, … but he dared not look up. Presently he felt the pulsing pressure of her hands upon his head! and a rush of strange, warm vigor thrilled through his veins like an electric flash of new and never-ending life.
"Thou wouldst seek after and know the truth!" she said, "Truth Celestial,—Truth Unchangeable, . . Truth that permeates and underlies all the mystic inward workings of the Universe, . . workings and secret laws unguessed by Man! Vast as Eternity is this Truth,—ungraspable in all its manifestations by the merely mortal intelligence, … nevertheless thy spirit, being chastened to noble humility and repentance, hath risen to new heights of comprehension, whence thou canst partly penetrate into the wonders of worlds unseen. Did I not tell thee to 'LEARN FROM THE PERILS OF THE PAST, THE PERILS OF THE FUTURE'—and understandest thou not the lesson of the Vision of Al-Kyris? Thou hast seen the Dream-reflection of thy former Poet-fame and glory in old time,—THOU WERT SAH-LUMA!"
An agony of shame possessed him as he heard. His soul at once seized the solution of the mystery, . . his quickened thought plunged plummet-like straight through the depths of the bewildering phantasmagoria, in which mere reason had been of no practical avail, and straightway sounded its whole seemingly complex, but actually simple meaning! HE WAS SAH-LUMA! … or rather, he HAD BEEN Sah-luma in some far stretch of long-receded time, … and in his Dream of a single night, he had loved the brilliant Phantom of his Former Self more than his own present Identity! Not less remarkable was the fact that, in this strange Sleep-Mirage, he had imagined himself to be perfectly UNselfish, whereas all the while he had honored, flattered, and admired the more Appearance of Himself more than anything or everything in the world! Ay!—even his occasional reluctant reproaches to Himself in the ghostly impersonation of Sah-luma had been far more tender than severe!
O deep and bitter ingloriousness! … O speechless degradation of all the higher capabilities of Man! to love one's own ephemeral Shadow-Existence so utterly as to exclude from thought and sympathy all other things whether human or divine! And was it not possible that this Spectre of Self might still be clinging to him? Was it dead with the Dream of Sah-luma? … or had Sah-luma never truly died at all? … and was the fine, fire-spun Essence that had formed the Spirit of the Laureate of Al-Kyris yet part of the living Substance of his present nature, … he, a world-unrecognized English poet of the nineteenth century? Did all Sah-luma's light follies, idle passions, and careless cruelties remain inherent in him? Had he the same pride of intellect, the same vain-glory, the same indifference to God and Man? Oh, no, no! … he shuddered at the thought! … and his head sank lower and lower beneath the benediction touch of Her whose tenderness revived his noblest energies, and lit anew in his heart the pure, bright fire of heaven-encompassing Aspiration.
"THOU WERT SAH-LUMA!" went on the mildly earnest voice, "And all the wide, ungrudging fame given to Earth's great poets in ancient days, was thine! Thy name was on all men's mouths, … thou wert honored by kings, … thou wert the chief glory of a great people, … great though misled by their own false opinions, … and the City of Al-Kyris, of which thou wert the enshrined jewel, was mightier far than any now built upon the earth! Christ had not come to thee, save by dim types and vague prefigurements which only praying prophets could discern, … but God had spoken to thy soul in quiet moments, and thou wouldst neither hear Him nor believe in Him! I had called thee, but thou wouldst not listen, … thou didst foolishly prefer to hearken to the clamorous tempting of thine own beguiling human passions, and wert altogether deaf to an Angel's whisper! Things of the earth earthly gained dominion over thee … by them thou wert led astray, deceived, and at last forsaken, … the genius God gave thee thou didst misuse and indolently waste, … thy brief life came, as thou hast seen, to sudden-piteous end,—and the proud City of thy dwelling was destroyed by fire! Not a trace of it was left to mark the spot where once it stood. The foundations of Babylon were laid above it, and no man guessed that it had ever been. And thy poems, … the fruit of thy heaven-sent but carelessly accepted inspiration,—who is there that remembers them? … No one! … save THOU! THOU hast recovered them like sunken pearls from the profound ocean of limitless Memory, … and to the world of To-day thou dost repeat the SELF-SAME MUSIC to which Al-Kyris listened entranced so many thousands of generations ago!"
A deep sigh, that was half a groan, broke from his lips, … he could now take the measurement of his own utter littleness and incompetency! HE COULD CREATE NOTHING NEW! Everything he had written, as he fancied only just lately, had been written by himself before! The problem of the poem "Nourhalma" … was explained, … he had designed it when he had played his part on the stage of life as Sah-luma,—and perhaps not even then for the first time! In this pride-crushing knowledge there was only one consolation, … namely, that if his Dream was a true reflection of his Past, and exact in details as he felt it must be, then "Nourhalma," had not been given to Al-Kyris, … it had been composed, but not made public. Hence, so far, it was new to the world, though not new to himself. Yet he had considered it wondrously new! a "perfectly original" idea! … Ah! who dares to boast of any idea as humanly "original" … seeing that all ideas whatsoever must be referred back to God and admitted as His and His only! What is the wisest man that ever lived, but a small, pale, ill-reflecting mirror of the Eternal Thought that controls and dominates all things! … He remembered with conscience-stricken confusion what pleasure he had felt, what placid satisfaction, what unqualified admiration, when listening to his own works recited by the ghost-presentment of his Former Self! … pleasure that had certainly exceeded whatever pain he had suffered by the then enigmatical and perplexing nature of the incident. O what a foolish Atom he now seemed, viewed by the standard of his newly aroused higher consciousness! … how poor and passive a slave to the glittering, beckoning Phantasm of his own perishable Fame!
Thus on the Field of Ardath he drained the cup of humility to the dregs,—the cup which like that offered to the Prophet of Holy Writ was "full as it were with water, but the color of it was like fire"—the water of tears.. the fire of faith, . . and with that prophet he might have said.. "When I had drunk of it, my heart uttered understanding, and wisdom grew in my breast, for my spirit strengthened my memory."
Meanwhile Edris, still keeping her gentle hands on his bent head, went on:
"In such wise didst thou, my Beloved, as the famous Sah-luma, mournfully perish.. and the nations remembered thee no more! But thy spiritual, indestructible Essence lived on, and wandered dismayed and forlorn through a myriad forms of existence in the depths of Perpetual Darkness which MUST be, even as the Everlasting Light IS. Thy immortal but perverted Will bore thee always further from God, . . further from Him, and so far from me, that thou wert at times beyond even an Angel's ken! Ages upon ages rolled away, . . the centuries between Earth and Earths purposed redemption passed, … and, . . though in Heaven these measured spaces of time that appear so great to men are as a mere world's month of summer, . . still, to me, for once God's golden days seemed long! I had lost THEE! Thou wert my soul's other soul, my king!—my immortality's completion! … and though thou wert, alas! a fallen brightness, yet I held fast to my one hope, . . the hope in thy diviner nature, which, though sorely overcome, WAS NOT, and COULD NOT BE wholly destroyed. I knew the fate in store for thee, . . I knew that thou with other erring spirits wert bound to live again on earth when Christ had built His Holy Way therefrom to Heaven,—and never did I cease for thy dear sake to wait and watch and pray! At last I found thee, … but ah! how I trembled for thy destiny! To thee had been delivered, as to all the children of men, the final message of salvation.. the Message of Love and Pardon which made all the angels wonder! … but thou didst utterly reject it—and with the same willful arrogance of thy former self, Sah-luma, thou wert blindly and desperately turning anew into darkness! O my Beloved, that darkness might have been eternal! … and crowded with memories dating from the very beginning of life! … Nay, let me not speak of that Supernal Agony, since Christ hath died to quench its terrors! … Enough!—by happy chance, through my desire, thine own roused better will, and the strength of one who hath many friends in Heaven, thy spirit was released to temporary liberty, . . and in thy vision at Dariel, which was NO vision, but a Truth, I bade thee meet me here. And why? … SOLELY TO TEST THY POWER OF OBEDIENCE TO A DIVINE IMPULSE UNEXPLAINABLE BY HUMAN REASON,—and I rejoiced as only angels can rejoice, when of thine own Free-Will thou didst keep the tryst I made with thee! Yet thou knewest me not! … or rather thou WOULDST NOT KNOW ME, . . till I left thee! … 'Tis ever the way of mortals, to doubt their angels in disguise!"
Her sweet accents shook with a liquid thrill suggestive of tears,—but he was silent. It seemed to him that he would be well content to hold his place forever, if forever he might hear her thus melodiously speak on! Had she not called him her "other soul, her king, her immortality's completion!"—and on those wondrous words of hers his spirit hung, impassioned, dazzled, and entranced beyond all Time and Space and Nature and Experience!
After a brief pause, during which his ravished mind floated among the thousand images and vague feelings of a whole Past and Future merged in one splendid and celestial Present, she resumed, always softly and with the same exquisite tenderness of tone:
"I left thee, Dearest, but a moment, … and in that moment, He who hath himself shared in human sorrows and sympathies,—He who is the embodiment of the Essence of God's Love,—came to my aid. Plunging thy senses in deep sleep, as hath been done before to many a saint and prophet of old time here on this very field of Ardath,—he summoned up before thee the phantoms of a PORTION of thy Past, … phantoms which, to thee, seemed far more real than the living presence of thy faithful Edris! … alas, my Beloved! … thou art not the only one on the Sorrowful Star who accepts a Dream for Reality and rejects Reality as a Dream!"
She paused again,—and again continued: "Nevertheless, in some degree thy Vision of Al-Kyris was true, inasmuch as thou wert shown therein as in a mirror, ONE phase, ONE only of thy former existence upon earth. The final episode was chosen,—as by the end of a man's days alone shall he be judged! As much as thy dreaming-sight was able to see,—as much as thy brain was able to bear, appeared before thee, … but that thou, slumbering, wert yet a conscious Personality among Phantoms, and that these phantoms spoke to thee, charmed thee, bewildered thee, tempted thee, and swayed thee, . . this was the Divine Master's work upon thine own retrospective Thought and Memory. He gave the shadows of thy bygone life, seeming color, sense, motion, and speech,—He blotted out from thy remembrance His own Most Holy Name, . . and, shutting up the Present from thy gaze, He sent thy spirit back into the Past. There, thou, perplexed and sorrowful, didst painfully re-weave the last fragments of thy former history, . . and not till thou hadst abandoned the Shadow of Thyself, didst thou escape from the fear of destruction! Then, when apparently all alone, and utterly forsaken, a cloud of angels circled round thee, . . THEN, at thy first repentant cry for help, He who has never left an earnest prayer unanswered bade me descend hither, to waken and comfort thee! … Oh, never was His bidding more joyously obeyed! Now I have plainly shown thee the interpretation of thy Dream, . . and dost thou not comprehend the intention of the Highest in manifesting it unto thee? Remember the words of God's Prophet of old:
"'Behold the Field thou thoughtest barren, how great a glory
hath the moon unveiled!
"'And I beheld and was sore amazed, for I was no longer
Myself, but Another
"'And the sword of death was in that Other's soul,—and yet
that Other was but Myself in pain
"'And I knew not the things which were once familiar, and my
heart failed within me for very fear!'"
She spoke the quaint and mystic lines with a grave, pure, rhythmic utterance that was like the far-off singing of sweet psalmody;—and when she ceased, the stillness that followed seemed quivering with the rich vibrations of her voice, … the very air was surely rendered softer and more delicate by such soul-moving sound!
But Theos, who had listened dumbly until now, began to feel a sudden sorrowful aching at his heart, a sense of coming desolation, . . a consciousness that she would soon depart again, and leave him and, with a mingled reverence and passion, he ventured to draw one of the fair hands that rested on his brows, down into his own clasp. He met with no resistance, and half-happy, half-agonized, he pressed his lips upon its soft and dazzling whiteness, while the longing of his soul broke forth in words of fervid, irrepressible appeal.
"Edris!" he implored.. "If thou dost love me give me my death! Here,—now, at thy feet where I kneel! … of what avail is it for me to struggle in this dark and difficult world? … O deprive me of this fluctuating breath called Life and let me live indeed! I understand.. I know all thou hast said,—I have learned my own sins as in a glass darkly,—I have lived on earth before, and as it seems, made no good use of life, … and now: now I have found THEE! Then why must I lose thee? … thou who camest to me so sweetly at the first? … Nay, I cannot part from thee—I will not! … If thou leavest me, I have no strength to follow thee; I shall but miss the way to thine abode!"
"Thou canst not miss the way!"—responded Edris softly, . . "Look up, my Theos,—be of good cheer, thou Poet to whom Heaven's greatest gifts of Song are now accorded! Look up and tell me, . . is not the way made plain?"
Slowly and in reverential fear, he obeyed, and raised his eyes, still holding her by the hand,—and saw behind her a distinctly marked shadow that seemed flung downward by the reflection of some brilliant light above, . . the shadow of a Cross, against which her delicate figure stood forth in shining outlines. Seeing, he understood,—but nevertheless his mind grew more and more disquieted. A thousand misgivings crowded upon him,—he thought of the world, . . he remembered what it was, . . he was living in an age of heresy and wanton unbelief, where not only Christ's Divinity was made blasphemous mock of, but where even God's existence was itself called in question.. and as for ANGELS! … a sort of shock ran through his nerves as he reflected that though preachers preached concerning these supernatural beings,—though the very birth of Christ rested on Angels' testimony,—though poets wrote of them, and painters strove to delineate them on their most famous canvases, each and all thus PRACTICALLY DEMONSTRATING THE SECRET INSTINCTIVE INTUITION OF HUMANITY that such celestial Forms ARE,—yet it was most absolutely certain that not a man in the prosaic nineteenth century would, if asked, admit, to any actual belief in their existence! Inconsistent? … yes!—but are not men more inconsistent than the very beasts of the field their tyranny controls? What, as a rule, DO men believe in? … Themselves! … only themselves! They are, in their own opinion, the Be-All and the End-All of everything! … as if the Supreme Creative Force called God were incapable of designing any Higher Form of Thinking-Life than their pigmy bodies which strut on two legs and, with two eyes and a small, quickly staggered brain, profess to understand and weigh the whole foundation and plan of the Universe!
Growing swiftly conscious of all that in the Purgatory of the Present awaited him, Theos felt as though the earth-chasm that had swallowed up Al-Kyris in his dream had opened again before him, affrighting him with its black depth of nothingness and annihilation,—and in a sudden agony of self-distrust he gazed yearningly at the fair, wistful face above him, . . the divine beauty that was HIS after all, if he only knew how to claim it!—Something, he knew not what, filled him with a fiery restlessness,—a passion of protest and aspiration, which for a moment was so strong that it seemed to him he must, with one fierce effort, wrench himself free from the trammels of mortality, and straightway take upon him the majesty of immortal nature, and so bear his Angel love company whithersoever she went! Never had the fetters of flesh weighed upon him with such-heaviness! … but, in spite of his feverish longing to escape, some authoritative yet gentle Force held him prisoner.
"God!" he muttered … "Why am I thus bound?—why can I not be free?"
"Because thy time for freedom has not come!" said Edris, quickly answering his thought … "Because thou hast work to do that is not yet done! Thy poet labors have, up till now, been merely REPETITION, … the repetition of thy Former Self, … Go! the tired world waits for a new Gospel of Poesy, … a new song that shall rouse it from its apathy, and bring it closer unto God and all things high and fair! Write!—for the nations wait for a trumpet-voice of Truth! … the great poets are dead, . . their spirits are in Heaven, . . and there is none to replace them on the Sorrowful Star save THOU! Not for Fame do thy work—nor for Wealth, . . but for Love and the Glory of God!—for Love of Humanity, for Love of the Beautiful, the Pure, the Holy! … let the race of men hear one more faithful Apostle of the Divine Unseen, ere Earth is lost in the withering light of a larger Creation! Go! … perform thy long-neglected mission,—that mission of all poets worthy the name.. TO RAISE THE WORLD! Thou shalt not lack strength nor fervor, so long as thou dost write for the benefit of others. Serve God and live!—serve Self and die! Such is the Eternal Law of Spheres Invisible, . . the less thou seest of Self, the more thou seest of Heaven! … thrust Self away, and lo! God invests thee with His Presence! Go forth into the world, . . a King uncrowned, . . a Master of Song, . . and fear not that I, Edris, will forsake thee,—I, who have loved thee since the birth of Time!"
He met her beautiful, luminous, inspired eyes, with a sad interrogativeness in his own. What a hard fate was meted out to him! … To teach the world that scoffed at teaching!—to rouse the gold-thirsting mass of men to a new sense of things divine! O vain task!—O dreary impossibility! … Enough surely, to guide his own Will aright, without making any attempt to guide the wills of others!
Her mandate seemed to him almost cruel,—it was like driving him into a howling wilderness, when with one touch, one kiss, she might transport him into Paradise! If SHE were in the world, . . if SHE were always with him.. ah! then how different, how easy life would be! Again he thought of those strange entrancing words of hers.. "My other soul, . . my king.. my immortality's completion!"—and a sudden wild idea took swift possession of his brain.
"Edris!" he cried.. "If I may not yet come to thee, then come THOU to me! … Dwell thou with me! … O by the force of my love, which God knoweth, let me draw thee, thou fair Light, into my heart's gloom! Hear me while I swear my faith to thee as at some holy shrine! … As I live, with all my soul I do accept thy Master Christ, as mine utmost good, and His Cross as my proudest glory! … but yet, bethink thee, Edris, bethink thee of this world,—its wilful sin, its scorn of God, and all the evil that like a spreading thunder-cloud darkens it day by day! Oh, wilt thou leave me desolate and alone? … Fight as I will, I shall often sink under blows, . . conquer as I may, I shall suffer the solitude of conquest, unless THOU art with me! Oh, speak!—is there no deeper divine intention in the marvellous destiny that has brought us together?—thou, pure Spirit, and I, weak Mortal? Has love, the primal mover of all things, no hold upon thee? … If I am, as thou sayest, thy Beloved, loved by thee so long, even while forgetful of and unworthy of thy love, can I not NOW,—now when I am all thine,—persuade thee to compassionate the rest of my brief life on earth? … Thou art in woman's shape here on this Field of Ardath,—and yet thou art not woman! Oh, could my love constrain thee in God's Name, to wear the mask of mortal body for my sake, would not our union even now make the Sorrowful Star seem fair? … Love, love, love! Come to mine aid, and teach me how to shut the wings of this sweet bird of paradise in mine own breast! … God! Spare her to me for one of Thy sweet moments which are our mortal years! … Christ, who became a mere child for pity of us, let me learn from Thee the mystic spell that makes Thine angel mine!"
Carried away by his own forceful emotion he hardly knew what he said, . . but an unspeakable, dizzy joy flooded his soul, as he caught the look she gave him! … a wild, sweet, amazed, half-tender, half-agonized, wholly HUMAN look, suggestive of the most marvellous possibilities! One effort and she released her hand from his, and moved a little apart, her eyes kindling with celestial sympathy in which there was the very faintest touch of self-surrender. Self-surrender? … what! from an Angel to a mortal? … Ah no! … it could not be,—yet he felt filled all at once with a terrible sense of power that at the same time was mingled with the deepest humility and fear.
"Hush!"—she said, and her lovely, low voice was tremulous,—"Hush!—Thou dost speak as if we were already in God's World! I love thee, Theos! … and truly, because thou art prisoned here, I love the sad Earth also! … but dost thou think to what thou wouldst so eagerly persuade me? To live a mortal life? … to die? … to pass through the darkest phase of world-existence known in all the teeming spheres? Nay!".. and a look of pathetic sorrow came over her face.. "How could I, even for thee, my Theos, forsake my home in Heaven?"
Her last words were half-questioning, half-hesitating, … her manner was as of one in doubt.. and Theos, kneeling still, surveyed her in worshipping silence. Then he suddenly remembered what the Monk and Mystic, Heliobas, had said to him at Dariel on the morning after his trance of soul-liberty: . . "If, as I conjecture, you have seen one of the fair inhabitants of higher spheres than ours, you would not drag her spiritual and death-unconscious brightness down to the level of the 'reality' of a mere human life? … Nay, if you would you could not!" And now, strange to say, he felt that he COULD but WOULD NOT; and he was overcome with remorse and penitence for the egotistical nature of his own appeal.
"My love—my life!" he said brokenly,—"Forgive me,—forgive my selfish prayer! … Self spoke,—not I, . . yet I had thought Self dead, and buried forever!" A faint sigh escaped him … "Believe me, Sweet, I would not have thee lose one hour of Heaven's ecstasies, . . I would not have thee saddened by Earth's wilful miseries, … no! not even for that lightning-moment which numbers up man's mortal days! Speed back to Angel-land, my Edris!—I will love thee till I die, and leave the Afterward to Christ. Be glad, thou fairest, dearest One! … unfurl thy rainbow wings and fly from me! … and wander singing through the groves of Heaven, making all Heaven musical, . . perchance in the silence of the night I may catch the echo of thy voice and fancy thou art near! And trust me, Edris! … trust me! … for my faith will not falter, … my hope shall not waver, … and though in the world I may, I MUST have tribulation, yet will I believe in Him who hath by simple love overcome the world!"
He ceased, . . a great quiet seemed to fall upon him,—the quiet of a deep and passive resignation.
Edris drew nearer to him,—timidly as a shy bird, yet with a wonderful smile quivering on her lips, and in the clear depths of her starry eyes. Very gently she placed her arms about his neck and looked down at him with divinely compassionate tenderness.
"Thou beloved one!" she said, "Thou whose spirit was formerly equal to mine, and to all angels, in God's sight though through pride it fell! Learn that thou art nearer to me now than thou hast been for a myriad ages! … between us are renewed the strong, sweet ties that shall nevermore be broken, unless …" and her voice faltered,—"Unless thou, of thine own Free Will, break them again in spite of all my prayers! For, BECAUSE thou art immortal even as I, though thou art pent up in mortality, even so must thy Will remain immortally unfettered, and what thou dost firmly elect to do, God will not prevent. The Dream of thy Past was a lesson, not a command,—thou art free to forget or remember it as thou wilt while on earth, since it is only AFTER Death that Memory is ineffaceable, and, with its companion Remorse, constitutes Hell. Obey God, or disobey Him,—He will not force thee either way, . . constrained love hath no value! Only this is the Universal Law,—that whosoever disobeys, his disobedience recoils on his own head as of Necessity it MUST,—whereas obedience is the working in perfect harmony with all Nature, and of equal Necessity brings its own reward. Cling to the Cross for one moment.. the moment called by mortals, Life, … and it shall lift thee straightway into highest Heaven! There will I wait for thee,—and there thou shalt make me thine own forever!"
He sighed and gazed at her wistfully.
"Alas, my Edris! … Not till then?" he murmured.
She bent over him and kissed his forehead,—a caress as brief and light as the passing flutter of a bird's wing.
"Not till then!"—she whispered—"Unless the longing of thy love compels!"
He started. What did she mean? … His eyes flashed eager inquiry into hers, so soft and brilliantly clear, with the light of an eternal peace dwelling in their liquid, mysterious loveliness,—and meeting his questioning look, the angelic smile brightened more gloriously round her lips. But there was now something altogether unearthly in her beauty, … a wondrous inward luminousness began to transfigure her face and form, . . he saw her garments whiten to a sparkling radiance as of sunbeams on snow, … the halo round her bright hair deepened into flame-like glory—her stature grew loftier, and became as it were endowed with supreme and splendid majesty, . . and the exquisite fairness of her countenance waxed warmly transparent, with the delicate hue of a white rose, through which the pink color faintly flushes soft suggestions of ruddier life. His gaze dwelt upon her in unspeakable wondering adoration, mingled with a sense of irrepressible sorrow and heaviness of heart, … he felt she was about to leave him, . . and was it not a parting of soul from soul?
Just then the Sun stepped royally forth from between the red and gold curtains of the east,—and in that blaze of earth's life-radiance her figure became resplendently invested with vivid rays of roseate lustre that far surpassed the amber shining of the Orb of day! Awed, dazzled, and utterly overcome, he yet strove to keep his straining eyes steadily upon her,—conscious that her smile still blessed him with its tenderness, … he made a wild effort to drag himself nearer to her, . . to touch once more the glittering edge of her robe … to detain her one little, little moment longer! Ah! how wistfully, how fondly she looked upon him! … Almost it seemed as if she might, after all, consent to stay! … He stretched out his arms with a pathetic gesture of love, fear, and soul-passionate supplication.
"Edris! … Edris!".. he cried half despairingly. "Oh, by the strength of thine Angelhood have pity on the weakness of my Manhood!"
Surely she heard, or seemed to hear! … and yet she gave no answer! … No sign! … No promise!—no gesture of farewell! … only a look of divine, compassionating, perfect love, . . a look so pure, so penetrating, so true, so rapturous, that flesh and blood could bear the glory of her transfigured Presence no longer,—and blind with the burning effulgence of her beauty, he shut his eyes and covered his face. He knew now, if he had never known it before, what was meant by "an Angel standing in the sun!" [Footnote: Revelation, chap, xix., 17.] Moreover, he also knew that what Humanity calls "miracles" ARE possible, and DO happen,—and that instead of being violations of the Law of Nature as we understand it, they are but confirmations of that Law in its DEEPER DEPTHS,—depths which, controlled by Spiritual Force alone, have not as yet been sounded by the most searching scientists. And what is Material Force but the visible manifestation of the Spiritual behind it? … He who accepts the Material and denies the Spiritual, is in the untenable position of one who admits an Effect and denies a Cause! And if both Spiritual and Material BE accepted, then how can we reasonably dare to set a limit to the manifestations of either the one or the other?
* * * * * * *
When he at last looked up, Edris had vanished! He was alone, . . alone on the Field of Ardath, … the field that was "barren" in very truth, now she, his Angel, had been drawn away, as it seemed, into the sunlight, . . absorbed like a paradise-pearl into those rays of life-giving gold that lit and warmed the reddening earth and heaven!
Slowly and dizzily he rose to his feet, and gazed about him in vague bewilderment. He had passed ONE NIGHT on the field! One night only! … and he felt as though he had lived through years of experience! Now, the VISION was ended, . . Edris, the REALITY, had fled, . . and the World was before him, . . the World, with all the unsatisfying things it grudgingly offers, . . the World in which Al-Kyris had been a "City Magnificent" in the centuries gone,—and in which he, too, had played his part before, and had won fame, to be forgotten as soon as dead! Fame! … how he had longed and thirsted for it! … and what a foolish, undesirable distinction it seemed to him now!
Steadying his thoughts by a few moments of calm reflection, he remembered what he had in charge to do, . . TO REDEEM HIS PAST. To use and expend whatever force was in him for the good, the help, the consolement, and the love of others, … NOT to benefit himself! This was his task, . . and the very comprehension of it gave him a rush of vigor and virile energy that at once lifted the cloud of love-loneliness from his soul.
"My Edris!" he whispered.. "Thou shalt have no cause to weep for me in
Heaven again! … with God's help I will win back my lost heritage!"
As he spoke the words his eyes caught a glimpse of something white on the turf where, but a moment since, his Angel-love had stood,—he stooped toward it, . . it was one half-opened bud of the wonderful "Ardath-flowers" that had covered the field in such singular profusion on the previous night when she first appeared. One only! … might he not gather it?
He hesitated, . . then very gently and reverently broke it off, and tenderly bore it to his lips. What a beautiful blossom it was! … its fragrance was unlike that of any other flower,—its whiteness was more pure and soft than that of the rarest edelweiss on Alpine snows, and its partially disclosed golden centre had an almost luminous brightness. As he held it in his hand, all sorts of vague, delicious thoughts came sweeping across his brain, … thoughts that seemed to set themselves to music wild and strange and NEW, and suggestive of the sweetest, noblest influences! A thrill of expectation stirred in him, as of great and good things to be done,—grand changes to be wrought in the complex web of human destiny, brought about by the quickening and development of a pure, unselfish, spiritual force, that might with saving benefit flow into the perplexed and weary intelligence of man; . . and cheered, invigorated, and conscious of a circling, widening, ever-present Supreme Power that with all-surrounding love was ever on the side of work done for love's sake, he gently shut the flower within his breast, resolving to carry it with him wheresoever he went as a token and proof of the "signs and wonders" of the Prophet's Field.
And now he prepared to quit the scene of his mystic Vision, in which he had followed with prescient pain the brief, bright career, the useless fame, the evil love-passion, and final fate of his Former Self,—and crossing the field with lingering tread, he looked back many times to the fallen block of stone where he had sat when he had first perceived God's maiden Edris, stepping softly through the bloom. When should he again meet her? Alas! … not till Death, the beautiful and beneficent Herald of true Liberty, summoned him to those lofty heights of Paradise where she had habitation. Not till then, unless, … unless, … and his heart beat with a sudden tumult as he recollected her last words, . . "UNLESS THE LONGING OF THY LOVE COMPELS!"
Could love COMPEL her, he wondered, to come to him once more while yet he lived on earth? Perhaps! … and yet if he indeed had such power of love, would it be generous or just to exert it? No! … for to draw her down from Heaven to Earth seemed to him now a sort of sacrilege,—dearer to him was HER joy than his own! But suppose the possibility of her being actually HAPPY with him in mortal existence, … suppose that Love, when absolutely pure, unselfishly mutual, helpful, and steadfast, had it in its gift to make even the Sorrowful Star a Heaven in miniature, what then?
He would not trust himself to think of this! … the mere shadowy suggestion of such supreme delight filled him with a strong passion of yearning, to which in his accepted creed of Self-abnegation he dared not yield! Firmly restraining, resisting, and renouncing his own desires, he mentally raised a holy shrine for her in his soul, … a shrine of pure faith, warm with eternal aspirations and bright with truth, wherein he hallowed the memory of her beauty with a sense of devout, love-like gladness. She was safe.. she was content, . . she blossomed flower-like in the highest gardens of God where all things fared well;—enough for him to worship her at a distance, . . to keep the clear reflection of her loveliness in his mind, … and to live, so that he might deserve to follow and find her when his work on earth was done. Moreover, Heaven to him was no longer a vague, mythical realm, ill-defined by the prosy descriptions of church-preachers,—it was an actual WORLD to which HE was linked,—in which HE had possessions, of which HE was a native, and for the perpetuation and enlargement of whose splendor ALL worlds existed!
Arrived at the boundary of the field, the spot marked by the broken half-buried pillar of red granite Heliobas had mentioned, he paused—thinking dreamily of the words of Esdras, who in answer to his Angel-visitant's inquiry: "Why art thou disquieted?" had replied: "Because thou hast forsaken me, and yet I did according to thy words, and I went into the field, and lo! I have seen and yet see, that I am not able to express." Whereupon the Angel had said, "Stand up manfully and I will advise thee!"
"Stand up manfully!" Yes! … this is what he, Theos Alwyn, meant to do. He would "stand up manfully" against the howling iconoclasm and atheism of the Age,—he would be Poet henceforth in the true meaning of the word, namely Maker, . . he would MAKE not BREAK the grand ideal hopes and heaven-climbing ambitions of Humanity! … he would endeavor his utmost best to be that "Hierarch and Pontiff of the world"—as a modern rugged Apostle of Truth has nobly said,—"who Prometheus-like can shape new Symbols and bring new fire from heaven to fix them into the deep, infinite faculties of Man."
With a brief silent prayer, he turned away at last, and walked slowly, in the lovely silence of the early Eastern morning, back to the place from whence he had last night wandered,—the Hermitage of Elzear, near the Ruins of Babylon. He soon came in sight of it, and also perceived Elzear himself, stooping over a small plot of ground in front of his dwelling, apparently gathering herbs. When he approached, the old man looked up and smiled, giving him a silent, expressively courteous morning greeting,—by his manner it was evident that he thought his guest had merely been out for an early stroll ere the heat of the day set in. And yet Al-Kyris! … How real had seemed that dream-existence in that dream-city! The figure of Elzear looked scarcely more substantial than the phantom-forms of Sah-luma, Zephoranim, Khosrul, Zuriel, or Zabastes,—while Lysia's exquisite face and seductive form, Niphrata's pensive beauty, and all the local characteristics of the place, were stamped on the dreamer's memory as faithfully as scenes flashed by the sun on the plates of photography! True, the pictures were perhaps now slightly fading into the similitude of pale negatives, . . but still, would not everything that happened in the ACTUAL world merge into that same undecided dimness with the lapse of time?
He thought so, . . and smiled at the thought, … the transitory nature of earthly things was a subject for joy to him now,—not regret. With a kindly word or two to his venerable host, he went through the open door of the Hermitage, and entered the little room he had left only a few hours previously. It appeared to him as familiar and UNfamiliar as Al-Kyris itself! … till raising his eyes he saw the great Crucifix against the wall,—the sacred Symbol whose meaning he had forgotten and hopelessly longed for in his Dream,—and from which, before his visit to the field of Ardath, he had turned with a sense of bitter scorn and proud rejection. But NOW! … Now he gazed upon it in unspeakable remorse,—in tenderest desire to atone, … the sweet, grave, patient Eyes of the holy Figure seemed to meet his with a wondrous challenge of love, longing, and most fraternal, sympathetic comprehension of his nature…. he paused, looking, … and the pre-eminently false words of George Herbert suddenly occurred to him, "Thy Saviour sentenced joy!" O blasphemy! … SENTENCED joy? Nay!—rather re-created it, and invested it with divine certainties, beyond all temporal change or evanishment! … Yielding to a swift impulse, he threw himself on his knees, and with clasped hands, leaned his brows against the feet of the sculptured Christ. There he rested in wordless peace,—his whole soul entranced in a divine passion of faith, hope, and love … there with the "Ardath flower" in his breast, he consecrated his life to the Highest Good,—and there in absolute humility, and pure, child-like devotion, he crucified SELF forever!