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Praise to the Holiest in the height, In all his words most wonderful; The angels, as beseemingly At once were tried and perfected, For them no twilight or eclipse; Twas hopeless, all-engulfing night, But to the younger race there rose And slowly, surely, gracefully, And ages, opening out, divide And from the hard and sullen mass O man! albeit the quickening ray Takes him at length what once he was, Yet still between that earth and heaven— A double agony awaits A double debt he has to pay— The chill of death is past, and now Glory to him, who evermore Who tears the soul from out its case, |
And in the depth be praise: Most sure in all his ways! To spirit-kind was given, And took their seats in heaven. No growth and no decay: Or beatific day. A hope upon its fall; The morning dawned on all. The precious and the base, Mature the heirs of grace. Lit from his second birth, And heaven grows out of earth; His journey and its goal— His body and his soul. The forfeit of his sins: The penance-fire begins. By truth and justice reigns; And burns away its stains! |
ANGEL.
They sing of thy approaching agony,
Which thou so eagerly didst question of:
It is the face of the incarnate God
Shall smite thee with that keen and subtle pain;
And yet the memory which it leaves will be
A sovereign febrifuge to heal the wound;
And yet withal it will the wound provoke,
And aggravate and widen it the more.
SOUL.
Thou speakest mysteries; still methinks I know
To disengage the tangle of thy words:
Yet rather would I hear thy angel voice,
Than for myself be thy interpreter.
ANGEL.
When then—if such thy lot—thou seest thy Judge,
The sight of him will kindle in thy heart
All tender, gracious, reverential thoughts.
Thou wilt be sick with love, and yearn for him,
And feel as though thou couldst but pity him,
That one so sweet should e'er have placed himself
At disadvantage such, as to be used
So vilely by a being so vile as thee.
There is a pleading in his pensive eyes
Will pierce thee to the quick, and trouble thee.
And thou wilt hate and loathe thyself; for, though
Now sinless, thou wilt feel that thou hast sinned,
As never thou didst feel; and wilt desire
To slink away, and hide thee from his sight;
And yet wilt have a longing aye to dwell
Within the beauty of his countenance.
And these two pains, so counter and so keen,—
The longing for him, when thou seest him not;
The shame of self at thought of seeing him,—
Will be thy veriest, sharpest purgatory.
SOUL.
My soul is in my hand: I have no fear,—
In his dear might prepared for weal or woe.
But hark! a deep, mysterious harmony
It floods me, like the deep and solemn sound
Of many waters.
ANGEL.
We have gained the stairs
Which rise toward the presence-chamber; there
A band of mighty angels keep the way
On either side, and hymn the incarnate God.
ANGELS OF THE SACRED STAIR.
Father, whose goodness none can know, but they
Who see thee face to face,
By man hath come the infinite display
Of thine all-loving grace;
But fallen man—the creature of a day—
Skills not that love to trace.
It needs, to tell the triumph thou hast wrought,
An angel's deathless fire, an angel's reach of thought.
It needs that very angel, who with awe
Amid the garden shade,
The great Creator in his sickness saw,
Soothed by a creature's aid,
And agonized, as victim of the law
Which he himself had made;
For who can praise him in his depth and height,
But he who saw him reel in that victorious fight?
SOUL.
Hark! for the lintels of the presence-gate
Are vibrating and echoing back the strain.
FOURTH CHOIR OF ANGELICALS.
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Praise to the Holiest in the height, In all his words most wonderful; The foe blasphemed the holy Lord, In that he placed his puppet man For even in his best estate, A sorry sentinel was he, As though a thing, who for his help Could cope with those proud rebel hosts, And when, by blandishment of Eve, He shrieked in triumph, and he cried, The Maker by his word is bound, He must abandon to his doom, |
And in the depth be praise Most sure in all his ways! As if he reckoned ill, The frontier place to fill. With amplest gifts endued, A being of flesh and blood. Must needs possess a wife, Who had angelic life. That earth-born Adam fell, "A sorry sentinel. Escape or cure is none; And slay his darling Son." |
ANGEL.
And now the threshold, as we traverse it,
Utters aloud its glad responsive chant.