—-
Then sank to rest, his mortal mission done. 5080
Hark to those shouts that hail a homing king!
A crimson aureole rounds the sinking sun,
Omen of golden dawn swift following;
Death's winter promise of eternal spring—
Celestial Edens, empires, throne on throne,
And worlds once waste, redeemed, there blossoming.
Future now present, and the past unflown,
While all unguised, unveiled, life, death, earth, time, are known.
EPILOGUE
The Angel Ascendant[1]
But what are life, death, earth, and time to thee,
Eternal Truth? Thou goest on for aye. 5090
Lives, deaths, earths, times, their plurals multifold,
These but the bubbles on thy boundless wave,
The sands of thy great glass, the flickering gleams
Of life that knows nor origin nor end.
These but the sparks flung from thy flaming forge,
The falling star-dust of thy firmament,
Where stars go down that straightway suns may rise.
Each ray of light, each principle of power,
Each epoch-measuring hap of history,
Had it a tongue would it not testify: 6000
"There cometh after me a mightier;
I but prepare the way his face before;
I but baptize with water, he with fire?"
Till now tells not the past this oft-told tale,
Which yet the future shall proclaim and prove?
Thou Angel, there ascending from the East,
Who criest unto four, Hurt not, but spare,
Till we the servants of our God have sealed!
Who art thou and why risest now to view?
"I am that Voice which crieth in the waste; 6010
That wandereth through all worlds, invisible;
That sayeth unto all, Prepare, prepare,
Behold He cometh! Go ye out to meet.
"As His, my goings forth are from of old:
A minister to Earth from Eden's hour,
Reopening the guarded heavenward way,
Whereby the fallen Michael rose again[2];
Lifting to rest the city sanctified[3],
Awaiting there my mandate to descend.
"Wrought I through him whom Gods name Gabriel, 6020
The Noah of a world once water-doomed,
By whom was earth besprent with life anew,
Nor less with light from truth's rekindled flame,
Still burning, though with error's incense dimmed,
And fouled with alien fire[4] in many lands.