The Heavens and all the worlds. Such is its blaze,
That had it not, at intervals, a haze,
Grading both Angel and the Human-kind,
The bright Arch-angel would be stricken blind,
To grope in Heaven, a Homer, sighing lays.
What less could fitly crown Omnipotence
Than Truth, the focus of all rays in Good?
Lo! there it shines upon the Holy Rood,
Breaking through clouds, a-massing dark and dense
From countless ages, Cains to Brotherhood—