Zerah.Thy look
Is fixed on earth, as mine upon thy face.
Where shall I seek His?
I have thrown
One look upon earth, but one,
Over the blue mountain-lines,
Over the forests of palms and pines,
Over the harvest-lands golden,
Over the valleys that fold in
The gardens and vines—
He is not there.
All these are unworthy
Those footsteps to bear,
Before which, bowing down
I would fain quench the stars of my crown
In the dark of the earthy.
Where shall I seek him?
No reply?
Hath language left thy lips, to place
Its vocal in thine eye?
Ador, Ador! are we come
To a double portent, that
Dumb matter grows articulate
And songful seraphs dumb?
Ador, Ador!
Ador.I constrain
The passion of my silence. None
Of those places gazed upon
Are gloomy enow to fit his pain.
Unto Him, whose forming word
Gave to Nature flower and sward.
She hath given back again,
For the myrtle—the thorn,
For the sylvan calm—the human scorn.
Still, still, reluctant seraph, gaze beneath!
There is a city——
Zerah.Temple and tower,
Palace and purple would droop like a flower,
(Or a cloud at our breath)
If He neared in his state
The outermost gate.
Ador.Ah me, not so
In the state of a king did the victim go!
And Thou who hangest mute of speech
'Twixt heaven and earth, with forehead yet
Stainèd by the bloody sweat,
God! man! Thou hast forgone thy throne in each.
Zerah. Thine eyes behold him?
Ador.Yea, below.
Track the gazing of mine eyes,
Naming God within thine heart
That its weakness may depart
And the vision rise!
Seest thou yet, beloved?
Zerah.I see
Beyond the city, crosses three
And mortals three that hang thereon
'Ghast and silent to the sun.
Round them blacken and welter and press
Staring multitudes whose father
Adam was, whose brows are dark
With his Cain's corroded mark,—
Who curse with looks. Nay—let me rather
Turn unto the wilderness!
Ador. Turn not! God dwells with men.
Zerah.Above
He dwells with angels, and they love.
Can these love? With the living's pride
They stare at those who die, who hang
In their sight and die. They bear the streak
Of the crosses' shadow, black not wide,
To fall on their heads, as it swerves aside
When the victims' pang
Makes the dry wood creak.
Ador. The cross—the cross!