The Angel in the Cloud

by Edwin W. Fuller

The very qualities we call innate,
Arise and rule through Self. Our reverence,
Or tendency to worship, is to gain
A good. Religion grows this tendency
Into the various Churches, all whose ends
Are to secure eternal good for Self.
And those who preach that man does sacrifice
Himself for fellow-men, I ask, why none
Will give his soul for others’? Many give
The paltry life on Earth for others’ good;
The very stones would cry “O! fool!” to him
Who’d yield his soul; for that is highest Self,
And nothing e’er can compensate its loss.

In all these things, Self stands behind the scenes,
And men see not the force that moves them on.
But in the boudoir, ’tis enthroned supreme,
And does not care to hide the cloven foot.
In every home, the marble and the log,
In mammoth trunks, and chests of simple pine,
In rosewood cases, and the pasteboard box,
Are crammed the slaves of Self, to poor and rich,
The clothes that, fine or common, feed its pride.
The velvets, satins, silken robes de flamme,
The worsted, calico, and homespun stripe;
The Guipure, Valenciennes, and Appliqué,
The gimp, galloon, and shallow bias frill;
The Talmas, Arabs, basques and paletots,
The coarse plaid shawl, the hood, and woollen scarf;
The chignons, chatelaines, and plaited braids,
The beaded net, and tight-screwed knot of hair;
The dazzling jewels, ranged in season sets,
The pinchbeck, gilt, and waxen trinketry;
The tinted boots, half-way the silken hose,
The shoes that tie o’er cotton blue-and-white;
The corset laced to hasten ready Death,
The leather belt, that cuts the broad, thick waist;
The bosom heaving only waves of wire,
The bosom, cotton stuffed, beyond all shape;
The belladonna sparkling in the eye,
The finger tip, and water without soap;
The rouge and carmine for the city cheeks,
The berries’ ruddy juice for rural ones;
The pearly powder, with its poisoned dust,
The cup of flour to ghastlify the face;—
All these, and thousand fixtures none can count,
Man’s vanity, and woman’s love of show,
Appropriate for Self.
And such is Man!
The puzzle of the Universe! Within,
A giant to himself; without, a babe.
A giant that we cannot but despise,
A babe we must admire for his power.
His mind, Promethean spark divine, can pierce
The shadowy Past, and gaze in rapturous awe
Upon the birth of worlds, that from the Mind
Eternal spring to blazing entities,
And whirl their radiant orbs through cooling space;
Or place the earth beneath its curious ken,
And with an “Open Sesame!” descend
Into its rocky chambers, there unfold
The stone archives, and read their graven truths—
Earth’s history written by itself therein—
How age by age, a globe of liquid fire,
It dimmer grew, and dark and stiff,
And drying, took a rough, uneven face;
Above the wave, the mountain’s smoking top
Appeared, beneath it gaped the valley’s gorge;
But smoking still, it stood a gloomy globe,
Naked and without life. And how the trees
And herbs their robes of foliage brought; their form
And life adapted to their heated bed.
And how a stream of animation poured
Upon its face, when ready to sustain;
Great beasts who trod the cindered soil unscathed,
And tramped the fervid plains with unscorched soles.
Great fish whose hardened fins hot waters churned
That steamed at every stroke. How periods passed
And fields and forests teemed with gentler life,
The waters wound in rivers to the sea,
Then spread their vap’ry wings and fled to land.
The oceans tossed in bondage patiently;
Volcanic mountains closed their festering mouths,
And Earth made ready for her master, Man.

It traces Man, expelled from Paradise,
Along the winding track of centuries.
It marks his slow development, from two,
To families, and tribes, and nations vast.
It gazes on the wondrous scenes of war,
And peace, and battle plain, and civic game;
And lives through each, with all of real life,
Except the body’s presence there. It turns
From man to beasts and birds, and careless strokes
The lion’s mane, the humbird’s scarlet throat.
It tracks the mammoth to his jungle home,
Or creeps within the infusoria’s cell.
It measures Earth from pole to pole, or weighs
The bit of brass, that lights the battery spark.
Is Earth too small, it plumes its flight through space;
From world to world, as bird from twig to twig,
It flies, and furls its wing upon their discs,
To tell their weight, and giant size, or breathe
Their very air to find its gaseous parts.
Now bathing in pale Saturn’s misty rings,
Or chasing all the moons of Jupiter
Behind his darkened cone. The glorious sun,
With dazzling vapor robe, and seas of fire,
Whose cyclones dart the forkèd flames far out,
To lap so hungrily amid the stars,
Is but its playhouse, where it rides the storms,
That sweep vast trenches through the surging fire,
In which the little Earth could roll unseen;
Or bolder still, beyond our system’s bounds,
It soars amid the wilderness of worlds;
Finds one condemned to meet a doom of fire,
And makes its very flames inscribe their names,
In dusky lines, upon the spectroscope.
With shuddering thought to see a world consumed,
The fate prepared for ours, it lingers there
Until the lurid conflagration dies.
And then seeks Earth, and leaves the laggard,
Light,
To plod its journey vast.
The smallest mote
Of dust that settles on an insect’s wing,
It can dissect to atoms ultimate.
With these, too small for sight, may Fancy deal,
And revel in her Lilliputian realm.
These atoms forming all, by Boscovitch
Are proved, in everything, to be alike;
And ultimate, since indivisible.
Each in its place maintained by innate force
And relatively far from each, as Earth
From Sun.
Suppose, then, each to be a world,
Peopled with busy life, a human flood,
As earnest in their little plans as we,
As grand in their opinion of themselves!
Oh! what a depth of contrast for the mind!
The finest grain of sand, upon the beach,
Has in its form a million perfect worlds!
Or take the other scale, suppose the Earth,
Our great and glorious Earth, to only form
The millionth atom of some grain of sand,
That shines unnoticed on an ocean’s shore,
Whose waves wash o’er our whirling stars and sun
Too insignificant to feel their surge.
Another step on either side, and mind,
In flesh, shrinks from the giant grasp.
Yet noble are its pinions, strong their flight;
Thrice, only, do they droop their baffled strength,
Before the Future, Infinite, Abstract!
The first is locked, the second out of reach,
The third a maze that none can penetrate.
The first, alone to inspiration opes;
The second dashed to Earth her boldest wing,
Spinoza’s, who essayed the idea God,
And grappling bravely with the grand concept,
So far above the utmost strength of Man,
Placed God’s existence in extent and thought;
And filled all space with God. The Universe,
A bud or bloom of the Eternal Mind,
That opens like a flower into this form,
And may retract Creation in Itself!
Alas! that effort so sublime should end
In mystery and doubt.
A Universe,
How vast so ever, has its bounds somewhere,
But Space possesses none, and God in Space,
Would be so far beyond Creation’s speck,
He scarce would know it did exist. That part
Of Mind, expressed in matter, would be lost
Amid the Infinite domains of thought.

Yet Man in flesh, the casket of the mind,
Whose wondrous power I’ve told, is ever chained,
A grovelling worm, to Earth, and never leaves
The sod where he must lie. No time is his
But present; not a mem’ry of the past.
His very food, while in his mouth, alone,
Tastes good. He stands a dummy in the world,
That only acts when acted on. How great
The mystery of union ’tween the two!
A feather touches not the body, but the mind
Perceives it; yet the mind may live through scenes
The body never knew, nor can. Yet not
With vivid life—the sense is lacking there.
The memory of a banquet may be plain,
So that the daintest dish could be described,
As well as if the eye and tongue were there;
The eye and tongue, alone the present know,
And find no good in anything that’s past.
All thought is folly, every path is dark;
Truth gleaming fairly in the distant haze,
On near approach becomes the blackest lie.
Man and his soul may go, nor will I fret
To learn their mystic bonds. A worm I am,
And worm I must remain, till Death shall burst
The chrysalis, and free the web-wound wings.
Yet, oh! ’twere grand to spurn the clogging Earth
And cleave the air towards yonder looming cloud;
To stand upon its red-bound crest and dare
The storm-king’s wildest wrath.

My thoughts
Grew dull, my eyelids slowly closed, the scene
Became confused and melted into sleep.
And far up in the blue, as yet untouched
By clouds, I saw a white descending speck.
Methought ’twas but a feather from the breast
Of some migrating swan, that Earthward fell,
And watched to see it caught upon the wind,
And sail a tiny kite to fairy land.
But circling down, the speck became a dove,
A heron, then a swan, and larger still,
Till I could mark a pair of great white wings,
Between which hung its wondrous form. Still down
It swept, till scarce above the trees it stood,
Resting on quivering wings, as if it sought
A place to ’light. I saw then what it was,
A steed of matchless beauty, agile grace,
Combined with muscled strength; but ere I drew
The first long breath, that follows such surprise
It gently downward swooped, and at my feet,
With dainty hoof, the turf impatient pawed.
Enrapt, I gazed upon its beauteous form,
Its sculptured head, and countenance benign,
The soft sad eyes, the arrow-pointed ears,
The scarlet nostrils opening like two flowers,
The sinewed neck, curved like a swimming swan’s,
The splendid mane, a cataract of milk,
That poured its foaming torrents half to Earth,
The tap’ring limbs, tipped with pink-hued hoofs,
That touched our soil with a proud disdain;
The dazzling satin coat, and netting veins,
And last the glorious wings, whose feathers lapped
Like scales of creamy gold. What seemed a cloth
Of woven snow, with richest silver fringe,
Draped with its gorgeous folds the shining flanks.

It was perfection’s type, the absolute,
Not one defect; the tiniest hair was smooth,
The smallest feather’s edge unfrayed. The eyes
Without the slightest bloodshot fleck, or mote.
No fault the microscope could have revealed,
Though magnifying many million times.
So great my wonder, that I could not move,
But lay entranced, while he stood waiting there;
Till wearied with my long delay, he raised
His wings half-way, and eager trembled them,
As bluebirds do when near their mate; a neigh
Of trumpet tone aroused me. Then I sprang
Upon his back, and wildly shouted “On!”
A spring with gathered feet, a clash of wings,
That made me cling in terror, and we swept
From Earth into the air. Woods, plains, and streams
Flashed by beneath, as, up and on, we charged
Straight to the frowning cloud.
My very brain
Reeled with our lightning speed, and dizzy height,
And oh! how silent was the air. No sound,
Except the steady beat of fanning wings,
That hurled us on a rod at every stroke.
The bellowing winds were loosed and fiercely met
Our flight. They tossed the broad white mane across
My shrinking shoulders, like a scarf of silk;
They blew the strong-quilled feathers all awry,
And like a banner beat the silvered cloth;
But swerving not to right or left, we pressed
Straight onward to the goal.
At last I reined
My steed upon the shaggy ridge of clouds,
And caracoled along the beetling cliffs,
Up to the very summit. Then I paused.
Behind me lay the world with all its hum
Of life, the distant city’s veil of smoke,
The village gleaming white amid the trees;
The very orchard I had left, now seemed
A downy nest of green, and far away
I caught the shimmer of the sea, where sails,
With glidings, glittered like the snowy gulls.
Behind all was serene, before me seethed
The caldron of the tempest’s wrath.
Thick clouds,
Thrice tenfold blacker than the black outside
We see, deep in the crackling fire-crypts writhed,
And boiling rose and fell. A deafening blast
Roaring its thunder voice above the scene,
As if the fiends of Hell concocted there
The scalding beverage of the damned.
My horse
Had snuffed the fumes, and rearing on the brink,
That fearful brink, an instant pawed the air,
And then sprang off. A suffocating plunge,
Through heat and blinding smoke, while to his neck
Convulsively I clung! Down through the cloud,
Until I gasped for breath, and felt my brain
Was bursting with the fervid weight.
He stopped
Before a large pavilion, round whose walls,
As faithful guard, a whirlwind fierce revolved,
And at whose folded door, with dazzling blade,
The lightning stood a sentinel. My steed
Was passport, and I passed within, but stopped
Upon the threshold, dumb with awe. The walls
Seemed blazing mirrors, whose bright polished sides
“Threw back in flaming lineaments” the form
Of every object there,—a trembling wretch,
With pallid countenance, shown ghastly red,
Upon a horse of War’s own direful hue,
I saw reflected there. The floor seemed made
Of tesselated froth, whose bubbles burst,
With constant hissing, into rainbow sparks;
While like the sulph’rous canopy, that drapes,
At evening’s close, a gory battle-field,
The roof of crimson vapor drooped and rose,
With every breath and every slightest sound.
And in the center of the glowing room,
Upon a sapphire throne an Angel sat,
Upon whose brow Rebuke and Wisdom met.
He gazed upon me with such pitying look,
And yet withal so stern, that all my pride
Was gone, and humble as a conquered child,
I ran with trembling haste and near the throne
Kneeled down.
“Vain man,” he said, “and hast thou dared
To doubt the providence of God; Behold!”
And, lo! one side of the pavilion rose,
And out before me lay Immensity.
The frothy floor, now crumbling from the edge,
Dissolved away close to my very feet,
The walls contracted their three sides in one,
And I, beside a throne I dared not grasp,
Stood on a narrow ledge of fragile foam,
That clicked its thousand little globes of air,
With every motion of my feet.
Far down
Below, the black abyss of chaos yawned,
So vast, I gasped while gazing, and so deep,
The Sun’s swift arrowy rays flash down for years,
And scarcely reach the dark confines, or fade
Amid the impenetrable gloom. Methought
’Twas Hell’s wide jaws, that opened underneath
The Universe, to catch as crumbs the worlds
Condemned, and shaken from their orbit’s track.
And long I looked into the vast black throat,
To trace the murky glow of hidden fire,
Or catch the distant roar. But all was still;
No murmur broke the silence of its gloom,
No faintest glimmer told of lurking light,
No smoky volumes curdled in its depths;
As dark as Egypt’s plague, serenely calm,
Defying light, the empty hall of Space,
Where twinkled not a star nor blazed a sun.—
A grand eternal night!
I shuddering turned,
With freezing blood to think of falling there,
And stretched a palsied hand to touch the throne.
The Angel’s eye was sterner, as he waved
Towards my steed, who seemed of marble carved.
The wings unfolded, and he leaped in air,
Beating from off the ledge the flakes of foam
That sank, with airy spirals, out of sight.
With slanting flight across the gulf he sheared;
The moveless wings were not extended straight,
But stood, at graceful angle, o’er his back,
As, swifter than a swooping kite, he flashed
Adown the gloom. His flowing mane broad borne
Out level, like another wing; his feet
With slow ellipses moving alternate,
As if he trod an unseen path. ’Twas grand
To see his graceful form, more snowy white
Against the black relief, sublimely float
Across the dark profound, and down its depths,
Pass from my view. As when an Eagle soars
Beyond our vision in the azure sky,
We wonder what he sees, or whither flies,
So I stood wondering if he would return,
And what his destination down th’ abyss.

Above, around, all was infinitude
Of light and harmony. The worlds moved on,
In mazy multitude, without a jar,
Star circling planet, planet sun, and suns
In systems, farther yet and farther still,
Till multiplying millions mingled formed
A sheet of milky hue. And far beyond
The last pale star, appeared a dazzling spot,
That flamed with brightness so ineffable
The eye shrank ’neath its gleam. And from its light,
Athwart the endless realms of space, there streamed
A radiance that illumed the Universe,
And down across the chasm of Chaos flung
A wavering band of purple and of gold.
And in that distant spot my ’wildered eyes
Traced out the figure of a Great White Throne,
Round which, in grand and solemn majesty,
Slow swept Creation’s boundless macrocosm.—
I felt too insignificant to pray,
But mutely waited for the Angel’s words.
He spoke not, but the curtains closer drew,
And left a narrow opening in front.
Then with a speed the lightning ne’er attained,
Our cloud pavilion swiftly whirled through space.
A seed that would have slain me with its haste,
Had not the Angel been so near.
As on the cars,
We dash through towns, and mark the hurrying lights,
Or shudder at an engine rattling by;
So through our door, I marked the countless worlds,
In clustering systems, chained by gravity,
Flash by an endless course. A second’s time
Sufficed to pass our little group of stars,
That waltz about our Sun, as if it lit
The very Universe. Then systems came,
Round which our system moves, and these
Round others, till the series grew so vast
I shrank from looking. Great Alcyone,
Our telescopic giantess, a babe
Amid the monsters of the starry tribe,
The last familiar face in Heaven’s throng,
Blazed by the door; an instant, out of sight!
And after all that we have known or named
On Earth were far behind, the millions came
In endless multitude; and on we swept,
Till worlds became a dull monotony,
And all the wonders of the Heavens were shown.
A planet wheels its huge proportions past,
Its pimpled face with red volcanoes thick,
That, with our speed, seem girdling bands of light;
A Sun, whose flame would fade our yellow spark,
Roars out a moment at our narrow door
As through its blaze we fly, then dies away,
Casting a weird and momentary gleam
Over the Angel’s unrelenting face;
A meteor tears its whizzing way along,
All showering off the scintillating sparks
That mark its trail. Far off, a comet runs
Its bended course, the mighty fan-like tail
Lit with a myriad globes of dancing fire,
That seemed like Argus’ eyes on Juno’s bird.
And on we sped, till one last Sun appeared,
A monstrous hemisphere of concave shape,
And brilliancy intense; it seemed to stand
On great Creation’s bounds, a lense of light.
Close by its vast red rim we shaved, and passed
Beyond, to empty space unoccupied.
No world, no sun, no object passed the door;
The steady blue, tinged with a brightening gold,
Alone was seen. Still on and on we flew,
Until a score of ages seemed elapsed,
And I had near forgotten Earth and home.

And yet the air grew brighter, till I feared
That we approached a sun, so infinite
In light, that I should sink in dazzled death.

We came to rest, the curtains fell away,
And lo! I stood within the light of Heaven.
And oh! its glorious light! No angry red,
Nor blinding white, nor sickly yellow glare,
But one vast golden flood, sublime, serene,
No object near, on which it could reflect,
It formed the very atmosphere itself,
An air in which the soul could bathe and breathe,
And ever live without its fleshly food.

No object near, for on the farthest bounds
Of space immense as mortal can conceive,
Creation hung, a group of clustering motes,
Where only suns were seen as tiny specks,
And Earth and smaller stars were out of sight.
No object near, for farther than the motes,
The walls of Heaven, in glorious grandeur loomed,
Yet near as flesh and blood could bear.
How grand!
From infinite to infinite extent
The glittering battlements were spread, the height
Above conception, built of purest gold,
Yet gold transparent, for I could discern
Though indistinctly, domes and spires beyond,
And all the wondrous workmanship divine,
That blazed with jewels, flashing varied hues
In perfect union; and bright happy fields,
That bloomed with flowers immortal, in whose midst
The crystal river ran. And through the scenes
Thronged million forms, that each sought happiness,
From million varied, purified desires.
Each face serenely bright as Evening’s star,
And some I thought I knew, were dear to me;
But as I gazed, they ever disappeared.