EPILOGUE.
The morning star, over the mountains peering,
Spoke to him not too distant for his hearing:—
I am the star of morning poised between
The dead night and the coming of the sun,
Yet neither relic of the dark nor pointing
The angry day to come. My virtue is
My own, a mild light, a relief a pity
And the remembering ancient tribe of birds
Sing blithest at my showing; only Man
Sleeps on and stirs rebellious in his sleep.
Lucifer, Lucifer am I, millstone-crushed
Between conflicting powers of doubleness,
By envious Night lost in her myriad more
Counterfeit glints, in day-time quite overwhelmed
By tyrant blazing of the warrior sun.
Yet some, my prophets who at midnight held me
Fixedly framed in their observant glass,
By daylight also, sinking well shafts deep
For water and for coolness of pure thought
Gaze up and far above them see me shining
Me, single natured, without gender, one
The only spark of Godhead unresolved.
But the lover gave no heed, so through his dreams
Marched back the rabble rout, they glowered upon him
But grown more awful and more reverend,
Poor things before, now garbed in ancient dress,
Bearded patriarchs and angry sybils
Levites with censers, chariot riding kings,
With comminations of hell fire and plague.
Then even Nehushtan, the snake finger-post,
Nehushtan which the credulous Hezekiah
Spurned for superstitious, would have eased him,
Or the bellowing voice of Aaron’s molten calf.