"Because thy time for freedom has not come!" said Edris, quickly answering his thought … "Because thou hast work to do that is not yet done! Thy poet labors have, up till now, been merely REPETITION, … the repetition of thy Former Self, … Go! the tired world waits for a new Gospel of Poesy, … a new song that shall rouse it from its apathy, and bring it closer unto God and all things high and fair! Write!—for the nations wait for a trumpet-voice of Truth! … the great poets are dead, . . their spirits are in Heaven, . . and there is none to replace them on the Sorrowful Star save THOU! Not for Fame do thy work—nor for Wealth, . . but for Love and the Glory of God!—for Love of Humanity, for Love of the Beautiful, the Pure, the Holy! … let the race of men hear one more faithful Apostle of the Divine Unseen, ere Earth is lost in the withering light of a larger Creation! Go! … perform thy long-neglected mission,—that mission of all poets worthy the name.. TO RAISE THE WORLD! Thou shalt not lack strength nor fervor, so long as thou dost write for the benefit of others. Serve God and live!—serve Self and die! Such is the Eternal Law of Spheres Invisible, . . the less thou seest of Self, the more thou seest of Heaven! … thrust Self away, and lo! God invests thee with His Presence! Go forth into the world, . . a King uncrowned, . . a Master of Song, . . and fear not that I, Edris, will forsake thee,—I, who have loved thee since the birth of Time!"
He met her beautiful, luminous, inspired eyes, with a sad interrogativeness in his own. What a hard fate was meted out to him! … To teach the world that scoffed at teaching!—to rouse the gold-thirsting mass of men to a new sense of things divine! O vain task!—O dreary impossibility! … Enough surely, to guide his own Will aright, without making any attempt to guide the wills of others!
Her mandate seemed to him almost cruel,—it was like driving him into a howling wilderness, when with one touch, one kiss, she might transport him into Paradise! If SHE were in the world, . . if SHE were always with him.. ah! then how different, how easy life would be! Again he thought of those strange entrancing words of hers.. "My other soul, . . my king.. my immortality's completion!"—and a sudden wild idea took swift possession of his brain.
"Edris!" he cried.. "If I may not yet come to thee, then come THOU to me! … Dwell thou with me! … O by the force of my love, which God knoweth, let me draw thee, thou fair Light, into my heart's gloom! Hear me while I swear my faith to thee as at some holy shrine! … As I live, with all my soul I do accept thy Master Christ, as mine utmost good, and His Cross as my proudest glory! … but yet, bethink thee, Edris, bethink thee of this world,—its wilful sin, its scorn of God, and all the evil that like a spreading thunder-cloud darkens it day by day! Oh, wilt thou leave me desolate and alone? … Fight as I will, I shall often sink under blows, . . conquer as I may, I shall suffer the solitude of conquest, unless THOU art with me! Oh, speak!—is there no deeper divine intention in the marvellous destiny that has brought us together?—thou, pure Spirit, and I, weak Mortal? Has love, the primal mover of all things, no hold upon thee? … If I am, as thou sayest, thy Beloved, loved by thee so long, even while forgetful of and unworthy of thy love, can I not NOW,—now when I am all thine,—persuade thee to compassionate the rest of my brief life on earth? … Thou art in woman's shape here on this Field of Ardath,—and yet thou art not woman! Oh, could my love constrain thee in God's Name, to wear the mask of mortal body for my sake, would not our union even now make the Sorrowful Star seem fair? … Love, love, love! Come to mine aid, and teach me how to shut the wings of this sweet bird of paradise in mine own breast! … God! Spare her to me for one of Thy sweet moments which are our mortal years! … Christ, who became a mere child for pity of us, let me learn from Thee the mystic spell that makes Thine angel mine!"
Carried away by his own forceful emotion he hardly knew what he said, . . but an unspeakable, dizzy joy flooded his soul, as he caught the look she gave him! … a wild, sweet, amazed, half-tender, half-agonized, wholly HUMAN look, suggestive of the most marvellous possibilities! One effort and she released her hand from his, and moved a little apart, her eyes kindling with celestial sympathy in which there was the very faintest touch of self-surrender. Self-surrender? … what! from an Angel to a mortal? … Ah no! … it could not be,—yet he felt filled all at once with a terrible sense of power that at the same time was mingled with the deepest humility and fear.
"Hush!"—she said, and her lovely, low voice was tremulous,—"Hush!—Thou dost speak as if we were already in God's World! I love thee, Theos! … and truly, because thou art prisoned here, I love the sad Earth also! … but dost thou think to what thou wouldst so eagerly persuade me? To live a mortal life? … to die? … to pass through the darkest phase of world-existence known in all the teeming spheres? Nay!".. and a look of pathetic sorrow came over her face.. "How could I, even for thee, my Theos, forsake my home in Heaven?"
Her last words were half-questioning, half-hesitating, … her manner was as of one in doubt.. and Theos, kneeling still, surveyed her in worshipping silence. Then he suddenly remembered what the Monk and Mystic, Heliobas, had said to him at Dariel on the morning after his trance of soul-liberty: . . "If, as I conjecture, you have seen one of the fair inhabitants of higher spheres than ours, you would not drag her spiritual and death-unconscious brightness down to the level of the 'reality' of a mere human life? … Nay, if you would you could not!" And now, strange to say, he felt that he COULD but WOULD NOT; and he was overcome with remorse and penitence for the egotistical nature of his own appeal.
"My love—my life!" he said brokenly,—"Forgive me,—forgive my selfish prayer! … Self spoke,—not I, . . yet I had thought Self dead, and buried forever!" A faint sigh escaped him … "Believe me, Sweet, I would not have thee lose one hour of Heaven's ecstasies, . . I would not have thee saddened by Earth's wilful miseries, … no! not even for that lightning-moment which numbers up man's mortal days! Speed back to Angel-land, my Edris!—I will love thee till I die, and leave the Afterward to Christ. Be glad, thou fairest, dearest One! … unfurl thy rainbow wings and fly from me! … and wander singing through the groves of Heaven, making all Heaven musical, . . perchance in the silence of the night I may catch the echo of thy voice and fancy thou art near! And trust me, Edris! … trust me! … for my faith will not falter, … my hope shall not waver, … and though in the world I may, I MUST have tribulation, yet will I believe in Him who hath by simple love overcome the world!"
He ceased, . . a great quiet seemed to fall upon him,—the quiet of a deep and passive resignation.
Edris drew nearer to him,—timidly as a shy bird, yet with a wonderful smile quivering on her lips, and in the clear depths of her starry eyes. Very gently she placed her arms about his neck and looked down at him with divinely compassionate tenderness.