The Angel in the Cloud

by Edwin W. Fuller

Along the walls, twelve gates of pearl were seen,
So great their breadth, and high their jewelled arch,
That Earth could almost trundle in untouched,
And in each arch was fixed a giant bell
Of silver, with a golden tongue that hung,
A pendant sun. So wide the silver lips,
That Chimularee plucked up by the roots,
And as a clapper swung within its circ,
Would tinkle, like a pebble, noiselessly
Against the rigid side. And as the saved
Were brought in teeming host, by Angel bands,
Before the gates, the bells began their swing;
And to and fro the ponderous tongue was hurled,
Till through the portals marched the shouting throng,
And then it fell against the bounding side.
And loud and long their booming thunder
Rends the golden air asunder,
While the ransomed, passing under,
Fall in praise beneath the bells,
Whose mighty throbbing welcome tells;
And the Angels hush their harps in wonder—
Bells of Heaven, glory booming bells!

Gentler now, the silver’s shiver
Purls the rippling waves that quiver
Through the ether’s tide forever,
Mellow as they left the bells,
Whose softening vibrate welcome tells;
And the quavers play adown the river—
Bells of Heaven, softly sobbing bells!

Then the dreamy cadence dying,
Sings as soft as zephyrs sighing;
Faintest echoes cease replying
To the murmur of the bells,
Whose stilling tremor welcome tells,
Faintly as the snow-flakes falling, lying—
Bells of Heaven, dreamy murmuring bells!

And in and out those Gates of Pearl, there streamed
A ceaseless throng of Angels, errand bound.
From one came forth a band of choristers,
With shining harps, and sweeping out through space,
Their long white lines bent gracefully, they sang.
Although so far away, that purest air
Brought every note exquisite to my ear.
’Twas richly worth life’s toil, to catch one bar
Of Heavenly melody. Oh! I would give
My pitiful existence, once again
To hear the strains that floated to me then,
So full, so deep, so ravishingly sweet;
Now gentle as a mother’s lullaby,
They almost died away, then louder rose,
And rolled their volumes through the boundless realms,
That trembled with the diapason grand;
Until eternal echoes caught the strain,
And glory in the highest swelled sublime.

Entranced, I lay with ’wildered half-closed eyes,
Till from another gate, another host
Marched forth, the armies of the living God.
Beneath their thunder-tread all Heaven shook,
And at their head the tall Archangel strode.
How grandly terrible his mien! His face
Lit with a soul that only kneels to Three;
The lofty brows drawn slightly to a frown
The eyes that beam with vast intelligence,
The depths of distance piercing with their glance;
The chiselled lips, compressed with stern resolve,
Yet marked with lines and curves of tender love,
That ever with a sigh Wrath’s vial broke
Upon the doomed. His splendid form so tall,
That as he paused a moment in the gate
His dazzling crest just grazed the silver bell.
He wore no arms nor armor, save a sword
Without a sheath, that blazed as broad and bright
As sunset bars that shear the zenith’s blue—
A sword, that falling flatly on the host
Of Xerxes, would have crushed them as we crush
A swarm of ants. An edge-stroke on the Earth
Would gash the rocky shell to caverned fire.
Unfolding wings would shake a continent,
He floated down the depths. Behind him came
A million foll’wers, counterparts in all,
Save presence of command.
I wondered not
That one should breathe upon the Syrian might,
And still the sleeping hearts, four thousand score.

And from Creation’s little corner came
The Guardian Angels, bearing in their arms
Their charges during life. As laden bees,
They flew to Heaven’s hive; and some passed by
So closely I their burdens could discern;
And though they came from far-off, unseen Earth,
The stiffened forms were borne all tenderly.
Some bore the dimpled babe, with soft-closed eyes,
As if upon its mother’s breast; its hands,
Unhardened yet by toil of life, its face
Unfurrowed yet by care’s sharp plough; and some
The age-bent form, with ghostly silvered hair,
And features gaunt in death, that would have seemed
A hideous sight, in any light but Heaven’s;
Some bore the rich, who made of Mammon friends,
Who wore the purple with a stainless soul;
Some bore the poor, who mastered poverty,
And broke the ashen crust beneath God’s smile;
Their work-worn hands now folded peacefully,
And passing towards the harp, the weary feet,
So often blistered in life’s bitter dust,
To tread with kings the golden streets of Heaven;
And some the maiden form bore lovingly,
So fair, they seemed twin sisters.
And I saw,
That, passing through the amber air, they caught
Its glowing dust upon them, and were changed,
The livid to the radiant. Then as they
Approached the City, all the walls were thronged,
And all the harps were throbbing to be swept.
And mid the throng there moved a dazzling Form,
The jewels of whose crown were shaped like thorns.
He stood to welcome, and the gates unclosed,
And passing through them, all the death sealed eyes
Were opened, and they lived!
And then I knew
What happiness could mean. To leave the Earth,
With all its torturing pains and ills of flesh;
The lingering, long disease, the wasted frame,
And, e’en in health, the constant dread of death,
That like the sword of Damocles impends,
And none may tell its fall.
And worse than flesh,
The tortures of the mind in fetters bound;
Its chafings at its puling impotence,
Its longing after things beyond its reach,
Its craving after knowledge never given,
Its constant discontent with present time,
Its looking towards a future, that but breaks
To light alone in distance, never near;
Its maddening retrospect o’er wasted life,
And loss of golden opportunities;
Its consciousness of merit none admit,
Its sense of gross injustice from the world;
The forced reflections on the sway of self,
And consequent contempt for all mankind,
Or shameful servitude to their regard;
The poisoned thorns, that skirt the “Narrow Way”;
The sneering laugh, the tongue of calumny,
The envious spites and hates ’tween man and man,
The doubts that swarm with thought about our soul,
That whispers all our labor here is vain,
That death is but extinction, Heaven a myth!

To leave all these, and find a perfect life,
To know that Heaven is sure eternally,
That sickness ne’er again will waste our frame,
That death shall never come again. The mind
In perfect peace and happiness; the hidden
Spread out before its ken; a sweet content
Pervading every thought, because “just now”
Yields happiness as great as future years;
Because Life’s highest end is now attained.
The consciousness of merit, with reward
Surpassing far all we deserved. A Home
Of perfect peace, no envious spite or hate
Within its sacred walls, but all pure love
Towards our fellows, gratitude to God,
A gratitude that all Eternal life
Will not suffice to prove. ’Twere joy enough
To lie before the Throne, and ever cry
Our thanks for mercy so supreme! And oh!
The vast tranquillity of those who feel
That life on Earth is ended, Heaven gained!
The Angel marked my gaze of rapt delight,
And said, “Wouldst thou go nearer?” Swift as light
We moved towards the City. On the steps,
In dreamy ecstasy, I lay, afraid to move,
Lest all the panorama should dissolve.
I cared not that I was unfit to go,
I cared not that I must return to Earth;
I felt one moment in the Golden walls
Was worth a dungeon’s chains “threescore and ten.”
The glory of its music, and its light,
Grew too intense, and sense forsook my brain.

Again my eyes unclosed, and ’mid the stars,
Familiar faces of the telescope,
We sped, while on the last confines of space,
The City lay with golden halo girt.
The systems passed, we neared old homelike Earth;
And far enough to take a hemisphere
At single glance, we paused. The little globe
Was puffing on, like Kepler’s idea-beast,
With breath like tides, and echo sounds of life;
Thus trundling on its journey round the sun
While o’er its back swarmed men the parasites.
As rustic lad, who visits some great town,
Returns ashamed of humble country home,
So I now blushed to own the world I’d thought
Was once so great.
The Angel pointed down,
And said, “Behold the vast domains of Earth!
Behold the wondrous works of man, that calls
Himself the measure of the Universe!
Those gleaming threads are rivers, and the pools
His boundless oceans. Those slow-gliding dots
The gallant ships, in which he braves the storms
The largest white one, see, is laboring now
Beneath a cloud, your hand from here might span;
What tiny tossings, like a jasmine’s bloom
That drifts along the ripples of a brook!
Now on the wave, now ’neath it, now ’tis gone;
The pool hath gulfed it like a flake of snow.
See, there are railroad lines, what works of art!
Thou canst not see the blackened threadlike tracks,
But thou mayst see the thundering train, that creeps
Across the landscape like a score of ants
Well laden, tandem, crawl across the floor.
’Twill take a day to reach yon smoky patch
Of pebbles! ’Tis a great metropolis!
Where Man is proud in power and lasting strength;
Where Art hath budded into perfect bloom,
Where towering domes defy the touch of Time,
And rock-ribbed structures reck not of his scythe
On every side, proclaimed Creation’s lord,
Poor flattered Man the title proudly takes—
One little gap of Earth, and not a spire
Would lift its gilded vane; the very dust
Would never rise above the chasm’s mouth.
And mark yon crowd outside the city’s bounds,
They hail Man’s triumph over Nature’s laws;
He conquers gravity, and dares to fly!
The speck-like globe slow rises in the air,
While all the throng below shout, “God-like Man!”
How pitiful! The flag-decked car but drags
Its way, a finger’s breadth above their heads,
And falls, a few leagues off, into the sea;
When ships must rescue Man, the king of air!
“He soon will touch the stars,” enthusiasts cry;
His highest flights ne’er reach the mountain-top,
That lifts its mole-hill head above the plain.

What different views above and underneath!
From one, the silken pear cleaves through the cloud,
And floats, beyond your vision, in the blue,
And franchised Man no longer wears Earth’s chain;
The other sees him drifting o’er the ground,
Beneath the level of the hills around,
The captive still of watchful gravity.

Upon yon strip of land, two insect swarms
Are drawn up, front to front, in serried lines;
These are the armies, ’neath whose trampling tread
The very Earth doth tremble, now they join
In dreadful conflict. From the battling ranks
Leap tiny bits of flame, and puffs of smoke,
Where thundering cannon belch their carnage forth;
The heated missile cleaves its sparkling way,
The screaming shell its smoke-traced curve; the sword
Gleams redly with the varnish of its blood,
The bayonets like ripples on a lake.
How palsied every arm, how still each heart!
If one discharge of Heaven’s artillery roared
Above their heads—not that faint mutter thou
Perchance hast heard from some electric cloud,
But when a meteor curves immensity,
And bursts in glittering fragments that would dash
Thy world an atom from their path. But God
Hath thrown the blanket of His atmosphere
Around the Earth, and shield, it from the jar
Of pealing salvos, that reverberate
Through Heaven’s illimitable dome.
Yet thou,
The meanest of thy race of worms, hast dared
To question God’s designs. Know then that He
Ordains that all, His glory shall work out.
The coral architect beneath the wave
Doth magnify Him, as the burning sun
That lights a thousand worlds. His power directs
The mechanism of a Universe,
Whose vastness thou hast been allowed to see,
And yet the mottled sparrow in the hedge
Falls not without His notice. Magnitude
Is not the seal of power, though man thinks so;
The least brown feather of the sparrow’s wing,
In adaptation to its end displays
God’s wisdom, as the ocean. Harmony
Is Heaven’s watchword, key to all designs.
A tendency towards perfection’s end
Pervades Creation; to this perfect end,
The polity Divine is leading Earth.
Endowed with reason, Man, perforce, is free;
And God, forseeing how he’ll freely act,
Adjusts all circumstance accordingly.
The order of this sequence, Man doth learn
In part; adapts himself to these fixed laws;
And thus is formed a general harmony.
Although the individual may oppose,
His forseen freedom, acting in a net
Of circumstance, secures the wished-for end.
The bloodiest wars are sources of great good,
Invasive floods rouse national energies,
Or, mingling, form a greater people still;
Hume’s skepticism foils its own design,
And rouses lusty champions of the Truth,
Who build its walls far stronger than before.
Poor sordid Man! like all your gold-slave race,
You deem wealth happiness. Hence, all your doubts
About God’s providence are based on gold.
The wicked have it, and the righteous not.
What you assert is oftenest reversed,
And in a census of the world, you’d find
The good, in every land, the wealthiest.
But Earth is not the bar where Man is judged;
But only where free-will and circumstance
May join in general progress. Gold is good!
Then good depends on use of circumstance,
And not on moral merit. Well ’tis so!
For were the righteous only blessed, all men
Would righteousness pursue, from sordid aims,—
The most devout, who love their money best;
And thus good actions’ essence would be lost,
That they be done for good, within itself,
And not for benefit to be conferred.