"Time yet was young[4], but old iniquity, 2380
Outcast of worlds redeemed, on earth was rife,
And, self-enchained, a fallen race lay prone
At feet of Lucifer. And demons laughed,
And hell rejoiced, and all that ribald host
Clapt hand, and danced and jeered derisively;
While gods and angels wept, their pitying tears
Whitening the spectral mountains cold and lone,
Wakening to virile springs a spirit waste.
"And there the sainted commonweal[5] arose,
Haven divine, hill of the sanctified, 2390
Oasis-like 'mid burning sands of sin;
God's people, pure in heart, and one in all,
No poor among them, pride and greed unknown;
Saved by the tidings first to Adam taught,
And next to Enoch's generation told.
"Righteous, they dreamt no evil, feared no ill,
And death, the universal doom, defied.
Earth not their pillow; they shall one day pass
From mortal to immortal painlessly.
"Self's chain was sundered[6]; devils glared aghast, 2400
And gnashed their teeth with disappointed rage,
Trembling in terror lest perdition's pit
Engulf them ere the time. Then gathering power,
As if for Armageddon's conflict[7] dire,
When triumphs Michael o'er the foe unchained,
Hell's molten belch of burning hatred hurled
Upon those hapless sons of earth who scorned
The refuge of the righteous; her bright towers,
Far-beaming with terrestrial radiance[8]—
The promise fair of full celestial change,— 2410
Bidding the vile beware, nor venture near
The awful mountain of God's holiness.
"Waxed foul the world in wickedness, piled high
A hideous monument of shame and crime,
Which, toppling with its own weight, crashing fell,
Whelming in ruin the guilty race of man,
Whose spirits, as fierce seas their dust devoured,
By fiercer fiends to dungeon deeps were driven.
Nor thence redeemed till He who died for all
Soared from the cross to set the captive free[9]. 2420
"The while, on fearless wings of purity,
Cleaving as bird or ransomed soul the air,
The sainted city entered into rest,
Envied of Babel, climbing robber-like[10];
Bride of the Highest, midway hovering,
Till folded in the bosom of the Gods,
Where Zions from unnumbered worlds have fled.
Type temporal of spirit antitype,
A future moral height foreshadowing.
"Foreseen the fatal deluge. Ere the doom 2430
Of all save faithful Noah and his seven,—
Tri-branching tree[11] of race regenerate,
Yielding anew life's fruit and foliage,—
Earth mourned as Rachel, Rizpah, o'er the slain,
The slain of men unborn, who yet must die
Degenerate in the days that were to be.
"Then Enoch wept, and sued in sympathy,
And God gave answer thus:
'Earth yet shall rest,
And, sanctified, shall see her Saviour reign, 2440
Monarch of worlds, His realms as ocean sands.
But it shall be within the latter days,
The days of vengeance and of wickedness,
When men the Sole-begotten crucify,
And He shall go again to judge the world,
Proclaimed by truth, forerun by righteousness,
Gathering the pure-in-heart unto a place—
A holy place my people shall prepare,
There to await my coming, mine and thine.
Then shown the resurrection's shadowing: 2450
Zion above, from all creations past,
Shall meet and blend with Zion from below;
Spirits and bodies of the just shall join,
And in the midst my tabernacle be.
Yea, as I live, so will I forth again,
My oath to thee, my covenant, to fulfill;
And earth shall garb in glory of her God,
And Noah's righteous seed in Me rejoice.'"
These things spake God to Moses, from the mount
Whose name is veiled to ken of humankind; 2460
And thus that prophet, but through unbelief
And cunning craftiness, at war with Light,
The fulness of his message sleeps till now,
When one like unto him[12] and Him he typed,
Brings forth the buried meaning from its grave.