Yesterday, To-Day, And For Ever: Book Viii. - The Church Militant Poem by Edward Henry Bickersteth

Avaunt thee, horrid War: whose miasms, bred
Of nether darkness and Tartarean swamps,
Float o'er this fallen world and blight the flowers,
Sole relic of a ruin'd Eden! Hence
With all thy cruel ravages! fair homes
Rifled for thee of husband, brother, son;
Wild passions slipp'd like hell-hounds in the heart,
And baying in full cry for blood; the shock
Of battle: the quick throes of dying men;
The ghastly stillness of the mangled dead;
The crumbling ramparts breach'd, the city storm'd,
The massacre of unresisting age,
The shrieks of violated innocence,
And bloom, almost too delicate for the print
Of bridal kisses and the touch of love,
Ruthlessly trampled underneath the heel
Of armed lust; and, pitiful to see,
The mother's womb ripp'd by the pitiless sword,
And life - her unborn offspring's and her own -
Shed in short mortal travail; lurid flames,
Wrapping the toils of arduous centuries
And hopes of ages in one funeral pyre;
Gaunt famine after, and remorseless plague,
Reaping their myriads where the warrior's scythe
Had been content with thousands; leaving scars
Upon a nation's heart, which never time
Wholly can heal: hence horrid, horrid War!
But, as I mused, there crowded on my spirit
The lofty virtues nursed in strife; the will
That breaks but bends not; goodness even in death
Abhorring evil; right defying wrong;
The stern self-sacrifice of souls afire
For perill'd altars and for hearths profaned;
The generous chivalry, which shields the weak,
And dares the oppressor's worst; love guarding love
From rapine, or, as God's executor,
Dealing forth vengeance on the stubborn foe,
And mercy to the vanquish'd; all along
The ages, names the noblest and the best
From Israel's chiefs to those brave men whose swords
Have been the bulwark of my native isle;
Till musing I exclaim'd, O righteous War,
Thou immemorial school of deathless deeds,
Not thee I censure, nor thy sons, but those
Dark powers of evil, who awoke thee first
From thy eternal slumbers undisturb'd,
Leaning remiss upon thy stainless spear
Hard by God's seat: not thee or thine I blame,
Not thee, - Jehovah is a man of war,
Nor thine, - Jehovah is the Lord of hosts.

Howbeit not of war in earth or heaven,
After a grateful interlude, where thought
Flow'd onward to its own sweet rhythm, at first
Oriel discoursed; but of the Sevenfold Spirit
Who, in similitude of burning lamps,
Burning before the sapphire Throne, appear'd
At signal of His voice who sate thereon
To move, His glory's effluence part veil'd
And part translucent in a radiant cloud,
While through the ranks of prostrate hierarchs
Descending from the heaven of heavens He came,
And likeness as of fiery tongues, diffused
In His Divine munificence of gifts
The brightness of His Presence, and enwreath'd
Each suppliant's head with flame. By the same Spirit
Impregn'd, as if his lips were touch'd with fire,
My guardian spake with an enthusiast joy
Of those first Pentecostal days, that morn
After such long millennial watches hail'd,
That burst of dewy spring unchill'd by frost,
That garden water'd by the early rain,
And tended by the risen ascended Lord,
The rosy childhood of His bride, the gush
Of pure first love untinctured by the world,
When silvery Hope whisper'd in angel hearts,
The time was short, the kingdom was at hand.

'Where, brother, thou wilt ask,' Oriel pursued,
'Where, meanwhile, lurk'd the powers of darkness? Crush'd
They lay, and scatter'd for a week of years,
And of their buoyant life utterly drain'd
By that intolerable mortal stroke
The Saviour's spirit, enfranchised on the cross
From the rent tabernacle of His flesh,
Dealt in one gaze around. Six years and more,
Smit by that scathing agony, they cower'd,
Irresolute, disheartened, disarray'd,
The spoilers spoil'd, the thrones of hell dethroned,
And all their routed hosts wandering astray,
In earth or air, a spectacle of shame.
But then (so Wisdom Infinite ordain'd),
Time soothing their disastrous wound, of all
Satan the first recall'd his drooping pride,
And, gazing on earth's battle-field, renew'd
His desperate counsels. All appear'd not lost,
While ruin out of ruin yet might rise,
As thus, conferring with his own dark thoughts
And gathering courage from his daring words,
Upon the height of Lebanon be mused:

''Satan, bethink thee who thou art. To faint
Were weaker than thy vassal's weakness. Man
For a few years' abandonment to lust, -
Prodigious venture, - risks eternal flames.
And shalt thou yield, thus alway respited
From age to age? Who knows not, but for ever?
Omniscience, as it seems, can only read
Futurity but dimly. Hath the Cross
Drawn, as foreshadow'd by the Crucified,
All to His footstool? I trow not. To thwart
Love's best, to baffle Mercy's uttermost,
This were revenge indeed, worthy the name,
For the corroding fire His Dreadful Eye
Has kindled in my secret bosom. Thou,
Arch-adversary, be thyself once more.
The crisis challenges despatch: for lo,
Heaven's sapling strikes its roots deeper each day;
The fount of life unseal'd on Zion's hill
Is ever sending forth fresh rivulets
Of blessing, - blessing which to me is curse:
Be mine to blight that tree: be mine to shed
A secret poison in that crystal spring.
Despair, as hope, breeds counsels. I have found
Yet for despatch delay. My faithful hosts
Are scatter'd, and my princes, Baalim,
Apollyon, Ashtaroth, and all their peers,
Cower till the storm be overblown: with them
Let me advise how easiest to retard
The Gospel chariot wheels. Tides flow and ebb:
This now hath reach'd its flood. The Son hath gone
With His bright ministries to heaven, and there
By sore experience taught, I dread Him less
Than walking on this earth in mortal flesh.
Nor fear I gently His viceregent Spirit,
Whose tongues of harmless lightning seem to' announce
A different war. Here I put off the last
Soft remnants of compunction. I have been
Too generous, too gentle heretofore;
But henceforth, rather than the sinuous snake,
Assume the fiery dragon. If this fail,
As likely' it may, may quiver is not void.'

'So saying, his dusky pinions he outspread,
And rose sublime into his ancient throne
Set in the starry firmament, and thence
Call'd his afflicted mates, who soon, though shorn
Of their late glory, with unbated rage,
And eyes that flash'd implacable revenge,
Came at their leader's summons, and ere long
In dire deliberations sate absorb'd.

'The shadow of that council fell on earth
When Stephen, on whose lips the Spirit had breathed
More of the fire of love than on the rest,
Was dragg'd before his nation's Sanhedrim,
And with seraphic radiance on his face,
Pleaded his Master's cause, heaven's advocate
Confronting hell's inexorable bar
In vain: but, from that presbytery malign
And ruthless judge averting his rapt gaze,
Behold the heavens were open'd to his view.
And with the eagle eye of faith he saw
Within the veil the holy cherubim
Shadowing the glory of the mercy-seat,
And on the right the Great High Priest of God,
Messiah, ministering (vision of bliss
Ineffable), and, calmly kneeling down,
Amid those cruel taunts and crushing stones,
The dying martyr breathed his spirit forth,
And fell in his Redeemer's arms asleep.

'This was the signal of that bitter war,
Which Satan and his re-assembled hosts,
Now urging, now relaxing, the contest,
Waged to the death for nine long months of years,
War which upon its scroll of heroes 'nscribed
Apostles, prophets, seers, evangelists,
Princes, and peasants of a princely heart,
Matrons, and maids, and children, till the cross
Was planted on the battlements of Rome.
Sore was the tempest; but the rooted oak,
Though loaden with the stormy winds and bruised,
Only more widely cast its acorns round,
The seed of after forests. On our part,
Like lightnings on our ministries of love,
Moved by the Omnipresent Spirit we flew.
Heaven put forth all its ghostly strength as hell,
Counsel with counsel militant: what time
The snow-white horse and its imperial lord,
Apollyon's symbol (worshipp'd there as Mars)
Chosen in defiance of the King of kings,
With eagles crown'd by Capitolian Jove,
Went conquering and to conquer forth. Ere long
That hue triumphal changed to fiery red,
The rider and his horse incarnadined
By fratricidal slaughter. And again,
Lean hunger prowling o'er the Roman world,
That mystic horseman and his crimson'd steed
Grew black as night: all faces gather'd gloom;
The new wine languish'd, and the mirth of harps
Was quench'd, and all the merry-hearted sigh'd:
Presage of worse. For that black phantasm soon
Assumed a livid pale, most ghastly steed,
Bestridden by the king of terrors, Death,
And follow'd by the shades of hell. Through all
We pitch'd our tents around the saints of God,
Alike in prisons and in palaces,
In cities, and in lonesome dens and caves;
And, when the fadeless crown of martyrdom
Was wreathen for the martyr's holy brow,
The Captain of our armies oft ordain'd
No slender band of spirits, but legions arm'd,
And turns of the celestial chivalry,
Such as in Dothan camp'd about the seer,
To' attend His dying servants; or Himself
Descended in His chariot paved with love
To bear them straightway home.

'But time would fail
To speak of all who trod in Stephen's steps,
Who for their Master's sake endured the worst
Of vengeance men could wreak on fellow-men,
Shame, taunts, revilings, hunger, nakedness,
Bonds, dungeons, scourges, tortures, till at last
They yielded up their bodies to be burn'd,
Or bow'd their neck to the devouring sword.
By many, with my bright compeers, I stood
In their last agony. Some I had watch'd
Like thee, from earliest infancy of faith,
My chosen wards: of whom thou know'st by name.
Perpetua, beautiful Perpetua, pride
Of Carthage. I was by her side that hour
When she a wife, a mother, stood unblench'd,
So young and fair, so tender and so true,
Before the proud Hilarian. In mine ears
Vainly her father urged his passionate suit,
And pleaded his thin silvery locks in vain.
And when the shouting theatre received
Her and her sister saint, Felicitas,
A princess and a slave (rank weigh'd not then),
And with them other three - when ruthless hands
Stripp'd from her gentle limb her robes, and gave
To the rude gaze of thousands charms which love
Had scarcely seen, - I heard her low-breathed cry
For patience, by her Lord vouchsafed, though now
The scourge made furrows on her quivering flesh,
And soon the madden'd and infuriate bull,
Wild with affright, forth rushing from its den
Gored all her tender side; until herself,
Triumphant in the hour of mortal pain,
Guided the gladiator's trembling blade
Straight to her bursting throat: then it was mine,
Attended by a glorious retinue
Of angels, to wait her parting spirit,
And lead her, heralded with songs of praise,
Through heaven's glad portals to her Lord's embrace
In yonder bowers of beatific joy.

'Martyr'd Perpetua was but only one
Of thousands not unlike: until the cry,
Swelling from year to year, from age to age,
Rose ever louder and more loud from souls
Beneath the alter crying, 'How long, O Lord,
Most Holy, dost Thou not avenge our blood?
How long, O Lord, how long?' A little space
God's patience suffer'd. Then the Pagan earth
Trembled as smitten with His hand: the sun
Became as sackloth, and the moon was blood:
The stars fell ruinous from heaven, as when
A fig-tree, shaken of a mighty wind,
Casts its untimely figs: the firmament
Was shrivell'd as a scroll: the island rocks
Fled, and the everlasting mountains sank
Appall'd. Jehovah had arisen, and man
Was prostrate at His feet.

'The earthquake ceased;
And all things had ere long resumed their calm,
When lo, the mystic Bride appear'd in heaven
Clothed with the sun, the moon beneath her feet,
And on her head a coronal of stars,
Exceeding fair. But, even as we gazed,
Her hour was come, and travailing in birth
She cried aloud, with bitter pangs and throes
Tormented. And, or ever we were 'ware,
Right opposite a fiery dragon roll'd
His baleful eyes, all ravenous to devour
Her helpless babe when born: portentous sign
Of woe and warfare imminent, which soon
Darken'd the fields of heaven. Her new-born babe
In sooth was caught up to the throne of power;
And upon eagle wings the woman fled
Into the lonely wilderness, and there
Abode for six times seven months of years,
Until the time appointed her of God.
But now the dragon and his hosts must drink
More deeply of the bitter cup of shame,
And taste from our avenging swords that wrath
Which they had braved too fiercely and too long.

'It was the year that Constantine avow'd
Allegiance to the conquering Cross, when I,
Returning from my solitary charge
With the lost Theodore to Hades, found
War, open war, already pre-announced
In heaven. For though Messiah, when He rose
Triumphant from Mount Olivet, had cleansed
The Heavenly Zion and its vast precincts,
Nor suffer'd from that hour unholy feet
To tread those temple courts, there lay betwixt
Wide champaigns, lower than the heaven of heavens,
But loftier than the earth; and these the foe,
Recovering from their fatal bruise, possess'd,
Wide regions of the starry firmament,
Not without orbs and embryo worlds, the which
They fortified with munimental walls
Of fire and darkness, fastnesses and forts
Innumerable, but chiefly' around that pole
Far stretching toward the regions of the North,
Where Satan fix'd his capital supreme,
By mortals Pandemonium call'd, for there
He and his rebel potentates were wont,
A gloomy consistory, to sit immured,
And thence descending in quick raids to ply
Their devilish arts upon mankind: as when,
To liken things in heaven to things on earth,
A pirate chieftain in the Egean lurks
By Lesbos or its tributary isles,
And sweeps the ocean from his secret lair.
Moreover from those dark palatial halls,
Where fallen gods in synod sate enthroned,
Invective blasphemies against the saints,
Exaggerating or inventing ill,
Cruel, obscure, vindictive, false, malign,
Rose day and night to God: never more loud,
Wreath'd Christian brows, and Satan knew his seat
Was crumbling underneath its idol weight.

'But now the inevitable hour had struck
Of conflict. Hell's iniquity once more
Had risen and trembled on the utmost brim.
Nor was it longer possible for ours,
Who for four thousand years and more had fought,
Opposing stratagem to stratagem,
Manoeuvre to manoeuvre, toil to toil,
But from the forceful violence of war
By God's command refraining, not to feel
A stern and holy joy, when now the word
Came from the height of Zion, by the mouth
Of Suriel, to equip themselves for fight,
And where the standard of great Michael waved,
A sheet of flame athwart the northern heavens.
To muster their innumerable ranks
For battle, following where he led the way.

'But ere that burning messenger resumed
His station at the footstool of God's throne,
Unarm'd, and unaccompanied, he pass'd
(Such is the fearless confidence of love,
And such amazement fearless love compels -
So Moses stood unmoved in Pharaoh's court)
Within the triple walls of darkness piled
By Satan round his vast metropolis,
And through the throng of ruin'd seraphim,
And lurid cohorts round about them ranged,
And, suddenly amid that council hall
Apparent, for His Lord spake winged words:

'Ye fallen principalities of heaven,
Wrath is impendent. Michael and his hosts
Already by command are on their way
To cleanse these heavenly regions. Ere the sword
Drive you and yours to ignominious flight
Or worse -'

'But Satan, rising from his throne,
Scarce in his fury finding words, brake short
The warning voice of heaven's ambassador,
'Whence art thou, cherub? Are not heaven's domains
Sufficient for thy nimble wing, that thou
Must violate my realms? Michael, thou sayest, -
He first, or I, of the archangelic three?
His armies - are they more or less than mine?
But let him come, with all the hosts of God
Number'd tenfold, - I fear, I fly him not.
Whatever it avail in idle peace,
Love is no equal match for hate in war,
Nor truth for guile, nor courage for despair.
Meanwhile for thy insultant ambassage,
Until the cohorts of thy friends are driven
From our imperial battlements confused,
Within the darkest dungeon they conceal,
Cherub, abide in chains, a spy's desert.'

'So saying, the Arch-fiend stretch'd his puissant arm,
To grasp that fearless spirit, but grasp'd him not,
For God around him cast His shield of power
Invisible; and through them forth he pass'd
(As once Messiah through the furious crowd
Of Nazareth pass'd scathless) through the guards
Who vainly throng'd his path, and through the maze
Of bastions - none could stop his way - nor paused
Until he came within angelic ken
Of the bright legions now from far and near
Assembling round the hierarchal tent
Of Michael. Goodly was the sight and brave.
Far as the eye could reach, beneath him lay,
In turns and squadrons and battalions rank'd,
The armies of the living God. Like light
Their helmets shone; light lightnings flash'd their swords;
While over them their ensigns waved like fire.
Warriors innumerable, of whom the least
Thus militant appearing among men
Would loose the loins of thousands. On the right
Was Gabriel marshalling his endless hosts;
Nor less upon the left was Raphael's charge;
Michael the centre held: while far in front
Ten thousand times ten thousand chariots blazed,
And horsemen clad in armor white as snow,
Who oft to right and left disparting show'd
The forest of impenetrable spears behind.

'Straight to those guards of flaming seraphim,
Where Michael stood alone pre-eminent,
Directing with his eye, and hand, and spear,
The glorious tryst, sped Suriel and announced
The scornful answer of the foe: whereat,
From chief to chief, from armed rank to rank,
And from brigate to battailous brigade
Rolling, arose a shout of martial wrath
Indignant. Thrice it rose, and thrice it fell.
A mighty wave of multitudinous sound,
And broke far off amid the troubled stars:
And, as the latest echoes sank, I came
From Zion's height, and took, at Gabriel's beck,
My post upon his distant right reserved.

'But now, at secret signal from the Throne,
Sounded the archangelic trump. Forthwith
That hosts of hosts, as by one breath inspired,
In silence voiceless as the hush of night,
Moved on with unimaginable speed,
Smooth and unbroken (as the peopled earth
Unjarring and unjarr'd moves evermore
Along her heavenly orbit), through the realms
Of light, until frowning before them lay
Outstretch'd in almost limitless extent
The empyreal kingdom of the picture of hell,
Immured in gloom, meet ramparts for meet foes,
Walls of what seem'd impenetrable dark,
Blind fissures yawning here and there betwixt,
Inviolate, embrasures none above,
Foundations none below, to mine or scale:
Nothing to mark where lurk'd the unseen foe;
No whisper heard within.

'Thither arrived
Michael his legions wide aloof disposed
To search if guarded portal, or ravine,
Or secret avenue, might tempt approach.
But none appear'd; though twice ten thousand leagues
Each touching each his millions stretch'd, such clouds
And exhaltations had the Apostate Fiend
(In likeness of the judgement clouds that roll
Veiling the Light of Light from creature gaze,
Though those be pure and these impure and foul)
Around his throne of evil circumfused.
But as we stood at gaze, a furnace blast
Rush'd from those bastions forth, and storms of hail,
As sharp rocks hurl'd from countless catapults,
With whirlwind fury on our armies smote;
Nor intermitted, while above our heads
Hot clouds of fiery ashes, black as night,
Discharged their ominous burden: such as once
Vesuvius travailing in earthquake pour'd
On Herculaneum's idle battlements,
And doom'd Pompeii's last festivities.
Horrible tempest: but for us that hour
Innocuous, who with instinct's quick surmise
(So flashes before thought the closing lid
That guards the apple of the human eye)
All cover'd by our golden shields received
Those levell'd thunderbolts; and on our helms
And mail of proof those burning ashes fell
Harmless as rain, which we beneath us shook -
Not without scorn. Haply to one who watch'd
From Pharaohs or from Egypt's plain it seem'd
Far in the Northern heavens a nebulous mist
Streak'd with strange fires, which vanish'd as he gazed.
But, when that terrible Simoom had pass'd,
No sun of light had moved, none crouch'd with fear,
None counsell'd base retreat. Such lofty strength
God in the hearts of all infused. And lo,
Michael strech'd forth his spear; and instantly,
Quick as the lightning's flash, from east to west
The watchword ran; and even as we were
We plunged into those beetling clouds - no thought
Of dastard terror, though it seem'd as well
Plunge into Etna's crater. For each one
His armor, forged of diamond and light,
Made luminous a foothold; and for each
The breath of his own lips before him clave
A dubious path, dubious and throng'd with foes,
Who now half hidden, half apparent now,
With arms of darkness in the darkness aim'd
Their deadly thrusts. Wounds were received and given
By weapons upon diverse anvils wrought,
Keen, ghastly, fiery wounds. Nor deem it strange
That sinless angels bear some marks of war,
A transient anguish for eternal gain.
Has not the King of glory in His hands,
And feet, and side, prints which eternity
Will not efface? Why not His angels? Is
The servant greater than his Lord? Were we
By hearing and by sight alone to know
His sympathy with pain?'

As Oriel spake,
He laid his hand upon a scar that seam'd
His forehead, which not unobserved before
Only appear'd a line of deeper thought,
No foul disfigurement, but added power
And more majestic royalty of mien.

'This from the furious Moloch's blade, who deem'd
With shout of victory and redoubled stroke
To end our duel; but Gabriel succor'd me,
And bore the fiend on his avenging spear
Back to his cloudy ambush. Few of ours
In that dread battle but received some sign
Of like endurance, honorable scars,
More precious to the warrior's glistening eye
Than spoil or jewell'd diadem: and few
But in extremity of peril owed
Their safety to a comrade's generous arm.
Deeds of high courage and renown were wrought,
And links enwove by stern self-sacrifice
Brother to brother binding, binding all
The closer to the Prince of all, whose eye
Nothing escaped, and whose recording hand
Wrote every act of loyalty and love
In heaven's unfading ageless chronicles.
The war was hand to hand: albeit at times
The storm-clouds scatter'd by God's breath reveal'd
A cubic phalanx of the foe, more densely'
Embattled than the guards of Macedon,
Who for great Phillip's greater son subdued
Wan Persia 'neath the leopard's feet. And then
Oft have I seen some mighty seraph, arm'd
In adamantine armor, throw himself
Into those serried hostile ranks alone,
While, following in the path that fiery sword
Made for itself, others to right and left
Have dealt their indiscriminate vengeance. Thus
Or singly, or in groups, or marshall'd charge,
As time and place befell, that conflict raged:
Millions of flaming spirits on either side,
And heaven, with planetary orbs for towers,
The ample battle-field. But from the first
Darkness succumb'd to light: though not one day,
As mortals reckon days, nor one brief year
Look'd forth the sun on the revolving earth,
But seven times seven her annual circuit mark'd,
The while from battlement to battlement,
From cloudy lair to lair, from orb to orb,
From plain to plain of dismal overthrow,
The foe borne slowly backward fell. In chains
My chieftain led Apollyon breathing fire,
And with him his quaternion body-guard,
Four angels fiercest of hell's brood, and bound
After the battle, for worse fate reserved,
These last in fetters by Euphrates' banks;
But hurl'd their leader to the abysmal pit,
To moan his fall with Uziel and his hosts.
Nor less Michael encounter'd Baalim
With Belus and Beelzebub, who drave
Consentient in tempestuous hurricane
Their fiery cars against his single might,
But found the race not always to the swift,
When, cleaving through their shields and useless helms
Those twain, our archangelic hierarch
Smote Baalim as with a stroke of fate
Inevitable, and dragg'd him from his throne
Above that flaming chariot, and consign'd
Him, maugre his relentless blasphemies,
To durance by Gehenna's brazen doors.
These our sole captives: for the rest our charge
Was not to capture but to drive them forth
From that supernal firmament. So God
Commanded, so His ministers obeyed.
For, as the trumpet of the jubilee
Blown on the height of Zion rang through heaven,
Their latest stronghold storm'd, their proud array
Pierced and transpierced on all sides, and their chiefs
Staggering with ghastly wounds, and pale with rage,
While now the breath of the Eternal Spirit
Cleansed all that sulphurous atmosphere, the crowds,
Of those rebellious, gnashing with remorse,
And inextinguishable pride, were seen
Driven to the uttermost precincts, that lie
Betwixt celestial and terrestrial things;
While Michael and his peers advancing bore
Their mangled cohorts down, a hideous rout,
Falling, like meteors quench'd, from heaven. Nor was
One province, lost in that disastrous fight,
Ever by the infernal powers regain'd:
For, while his armies march'd triumphant on
To songs of undeclining victory,
Messiah seal'd the glorious realms they trod
Against the foes' return. And, in the year
The apostate Julian breathed his last on earth,
The rearmost of those ruin'd ones, despite
The cloudy covert of the Arch-fiend's shield,
Was driven from the empyreal regions down
To lower worlds. And heaven had rest from war.

'Scarce in the limitless demesne of space
Echoing had our triumphal paeans sunk
To whispers, ere a strange refrain of woe,
Foreboding ill to dwellers on the earth,
Rose from the Prescient Spirit; and, without pause
Of service, we on God's behalf resumed
Our stations militant about the saints:
Nor needless, nor too soon. For Satan now,
Driven headlong, and tormented with quick wounds
(For not to them were healing leaves of life
Brought in that battle from the trees that bloom
Around the heavenly Zion), urged their flight
Through the terrestrial firmament, nor stay'd
Till shrouded by the vaporous skirts of clouds,
That for seven moons had hung like ominous death
Over the frozen regions of the North,
They cluster'd shivering with despair and shame,
A ghastly rabblement of angels - small
And great were there - the mightiest as the least
Confounded. But as when a stranded bark
Is beating on the surge-swept rocks, the crew
Pale with near death around their captain throng,
The while he schemes some miserable raft
Only less hopeless than the ravenous waves,
So they around the lost Archangel flock'd,
Who, with intensity of stifled rage,
Not fear, pallid and trembling, for his time
He knew was short, lest premature despair
Should, ere the fated hour had struck, consign
Him and his armies to the bottomless pit,
Opening designs, which on himself and them
With tenfold vengeance should recoil, thus spake:

''Comrades in arms, and in this sore defeat
Equal companions, sinister this day
Hath been to us the sword's arbitrament.
Such is the lot of war. But not the less
Stands adverse our unconquerable will,
Against which iron obstinate resolve
Omnipotence is shatter'd. Friends, herein
Let us make virtue of necessity.
The door of mercy hath long since been shut;
And soon, after a respite pre-ordain'd,
If rightly' I read the oracles of fate,
The portals of the vast abysmal deep
Will open, and the victor hosts of heaven,
Or heaven's High King Himself descending, drive
Us from our native light to the dark realms
Of chaos, there to' abide disconsolate,
Disown'd of God, disherited of heaven,
Unless in sooth we make a hell of earth,
And thus anticipate a lower fall,
Embracing (our primeval hope) this orb
Within the empire of eternal night.
Nor call I now a secret consistory
Of potentates, and seraphim, and thrones:
My comrades, be ye all my counsellors -
Thus much your zeal, your faith, your sufferings claim.
Not wisely has One deem'd Allwise, methinks,
Suffer'd our weary multitudes to rest
Midway on this vex'd globe, whose former wrecks
Shall be forgotten, overlaid with more;
Nor will the hostile legions find their charge
So light as their untimely shouts misdeem.
Much may in brief be done. First let us loose
The barriers of those Northern floods that chafe
Around the confines of the Roman world,
An angry fretting sea, which loosed may sweep
That Woman (ye that hear me, understand),
To utter death. But failing this, - and this
Is but the prelude of my last revenge, -
Our triumphs in the past, and they have been
Such as have shaken the Eternal Throne,
Have sprung from fighting God with God-like arms:
Now let us counterfeit Himself, Triune.
Comrades, for this I willingly forego
My solitary regal state supreme,
And for the common sake of all resign
My archangelic primacy, and give
My sceptre to another. Which, ye gods,
Which of ye will ascend my throne, and share
With me its everlasting royalty?'

'He ask'd, but for a space no whisper broke
The gloomy silence, - such far-shadowing fears
Fulfill'd all hearts, - till Ashtaroth, still sore
With wounds unclosed and torments unassuaged,
Groan'd forth, 'If only Baalim were here!'

'And Satan, as a prescient god, return'd -
'Thy prayers shall be accomplish'd. Baalim
In the ripe fulness of predestined years
Shall rise - so fatal oracles ordain -
Rise from the dark abyss: and him I set
Vicegerent on my throne, by virtue earn'd,
Messiah's not unmeet antagonist,
Subdued and risen against subdued and risen,
And with him thee, my faithful Ashtaroth,
Indomitable in thy sevenfold might.
Henceforth my glory is to glorify
You twain, you only. Let us, three in one,
If not in essence yet in will triune,
Triunity of darkness, counterwork
The Trinity of light. My soul forecasts
The shadows of the future. Is the cup
Of vengeance sweet? Comrades, it shall be fill'd
Full and for ever to the cruel brim.
Messiah hath espoused a Bride on earth:
We will defile that Bride. His Church of old
Fell easily in our lascivious arms;
But this chaste matron, nurtured at the Cross,
And overshadow'd by the Dove, and school'd
In suffering, will be far more rigid found:
Yet not impregnable, we copying Him.
Doth He work slowly? slowly we must work:
And secretly? we must in secret work:
And patiently? we patiently must work.
And if at last within His temple courts
His well-beloved, by us betray'd, debauch'd,
Decking herself with scarlet, gems, and gold,
And all the blandishments of harlotry,
Have dalliance with the nations and their kings,
And offer them her honey'd cup of loves,
Drunken herself with sweeter nectarine,
The life-blood of the martyr'd saints of God,
Were not this vengeance which might soothe our pangs
Here, or in dread Gehenna, to recall?
Let Him chastise as likes Him. Let Him crush
Our hatred underneath His burning feet.
We shall have marr'd His bridal. What amends
Were to the injured spouse the worst of ills
Heap'd on the loathed adulterer? Likelier far,
Weary and sick at heart of those ingrate,
Messiah will forsake that ruin'd race,
Them and their tainted home, and leave us here,
Apostate gods of an apostate world.'

'So spake the lost Archangel; and his hosts
Infatuate on their bucklers clash'd applause.

'Ah subtlest, snared in thine own subtleties!
False spirit, by thine own falsehoods circumvent!
Folly impersonate! And deemedst thou
In thy blind madness to defile the Bride,
Whom from eternity the Father gave
Affianced consort to His only Son?
Defile her? or, if not defile, destroy?
Go, ply thy devilish arts, thou shalt but grasp
An unsubstantial phantom, or at most,
Polluting more thy loathsome seed, advance
A harlot to the world's hierarchal throne:
The Bride is hidden in the wilderness.
Go, heat thine idol furnace sevenfold,
And, baffled of the Bride, her children cast
Into the burning kiln, it shall not singe
The tender blossom on their cheek; for lo,
Walking at large as sons of Gods with God
Through fire and fume, their white asbestos robes
Grow only purer with intenser flame.

'Dead calm before the tempest: a strange hush
Upon the expectant deep: the winds enchain'd,
Till from the mystic Israel's tribes the saints
Were seal'd in secret with the seal of God;
And visions of the upper Paradise, -
Palm-bearing, white-robed multitudes who sing
Salvation, pastures of unwithering bloom,
And fountains of perennial living joy, -
Drew homeward pilgrim hearts. 'Twas done: and heaven
In solemn awe kept silence for a space:
While now seven angels stood with trumps in hand;
And habited in light, as man's High Priest
Standing before the golden mercy-seat,
The Christ, the Angel of the Covenant,
Offer'd in sacrifice rich fragrant clouds
Of incense with the struggling prayers of saints, -
Propitious eucharist. But, this rite done,
The Angel in His golden censer took
Fire blazing from that altar hearth, cast
Earthward the flaming coals, which as they fell
Kindled the tempest-charged electric air.
And the first angel blew his trump; and lo,
Forth rushing from the North a hailstorm burst
Upon the Roman earth, and fire and ice
(More terrible than that which smote the pride
Of Egypt at the beck of Amram's son)
Fell mix'd with blood. Nor long delay: for now
The second angel sounded, and forthwith
A mountain, belching lava streams and smoke,
Torn from its dark foundations, slowly sank
Into the angry seas, and dyed their waves
With ruddy fires. And lo, an ominous star,
As the third trumpeter his clarion blew,
Sloped through the startled firmament and fell,
Bitter as wormwood, in the crystal springs:
Whence after flow'd not life, but death. But, ere
This plague was past, the fourth celestial watch
Sounded his boding cornet, and behold
The sun and moon endured dismal eclipse,
And through the heavens a third part of the stars
Grew pale: while flying with disastrous wing
An eagle cleft the troubled sky and scream'd
Its triple dirge prophetic, Woe, Woe, Woe!

'Like buried Ninevah, or Carthage, Rome
Had sunk for ever underneath these plagues,
But on the verge of ruin, as forecast
By Satan, Baalim, heal'd of his wound,
In likeness of a ravenous beast of prey,
Rising from the abysmal waters, ranged
The desolated shores, ten-horn'd, ten-crown'd,
And on his heads the names of blasphemy:
To him the dragon tender'd all his power.
While sevenfold Ashtaroth, with beauty smirch'd
In battle, but with undecaying wiles,
Couching his fell designs in lamb-like guise,
Sent through all lands his legionary spirits,
And led the shepherds of the silly sheep
Blindfold, and blinding others, to adore
The beast whose deadly wound was heal'd, and make,
By his perfidious miracles beguiled,
A bestial vocal image, who as God
Upon the altar seated in God's house,
Holding the keys of Peter, should receive
The homage of the world. Thus Phoenix-like
On the rent walls and smoking towers of Rome,
In hideous mimicry of Him who built
His church on Salem's crumbling battlements,
The Arch-adversary for his harlot bride
Builded a mystical metropolis,
The haunt of devils, Babylon the great,
Whence in her pride and pomp she might allure
The nations, as the peerless queen of heaven,
Mother and mistress of all lands. Alas
For miserable Christendom! The East
Gloom'd underneath the shadow of new gods,
Sculptured, or cast, or pictured: and the West
Drave out Olympian deities to' instate
Angels and saints within their vacant shrines,
Blaspheming God and them at once. Meanwhile
Apollyon, otherwise Abaddon call'd,
Who sank with Baalim, equal in crime,
Nor had in the abyss unlearn'd revenge,
Oped, when his chains were loosed, the infernal pit,
From whence, as from a furnace, fiery smoke
Rose, darkening the terrestrial firmament;
And locust legions issuing, mail'd for war,
None such before or after them, swarm'd forth
Embattled from the wilds of Araby,
And with their lion teeth and scorpion stings
Tormented them that dwelt upon the earth
For twice five months of years. Nor had this scourge
Pass'd ere the sixth prophetic trumpet clang'd,
And the four spirits, Apollyon's fourfold guard,
Bound in Euphrates, by command were loosed,
And straightway from the famed Bagdad led forth
Myriads of myriads, turms of horse, twice told,
In sulphur clad and hyacinth and fire,
Over the devastated earth which shook
Benearth their trampling: but the rest, whose names
Were not engraven in the book of life,
In foul idolatries and endless lusts
And devilish incantations lived and died.

'The roots of fairest bloom lie sometime hidden
The deepest undernearth the soil: the stones
Of purest crystal are from gloomiest mines:
The tenderest pearls are won from roughest seas:
Beam from unfathomable distances,
Ere they disclose their radiance. And when night
Hung darkest o'er the struggling Church, - when faith
Was weary wrestling, not with heathen foes,
But, mystery of mysteries, with her
Who claim'd allegiance as the Bride of Christ, -
When Satan and his fellow-fiends devised
Daily new tortures, and relentless scythes
Mow'd swaths of martyrs in the Alpine glens, -
When fronting all the powers of Antichrist
Christ's feeblest braved their fiercest, - then and there
Were vessels fashion'd for the Master's use
Or unexampled beauty and of price
Beyond all price. The Comforter was there,
And in His tender ministries we learn'd
Patience and grace not dream'd of hitherto.
Angels hung clustering round an infant's sleep;
And seraphs waited for a child's response;
And legions watch'd who deem'd themselves alone.
Love baffled hate; and never a trembling lamb
Was from the Heavenly Shepherd's bosom torn.
Eternity irradiated time:
A Father's smile outweigh'd earth's myriad powers;
A Saviour's love was country, kith, and home;
The weakest, in the Spirit's might, were strong.
Ah! brother, there are tales of secret grace,
Written in heaven, which shall suffuse thine eyes
With tears of joy hereafter.

'But those days
Were number'd of rebuke and blasphemy.
And even as Rome in her infatuate pride
Vaunted the last faint witnesses were crush'd,
Lo, from the heavens descended One whose face
Shone as the sun, cloud-mantled, rainbow-crown'd,
And set His fiery right foot on the sea,
His left on earth, and with His lion voice
Waking far thunders in the clouds that hung
Around the throne of judgement, sware by Him
Who lives for ever and for ever, time,
As meted on His chart, should be no more,
Save only till the great archangel blew
The latest trumpet of the seven, and then
The mystery of God should be complete.

'Askest thou, who it was, thus robed in light?
None other than Messiah. For they err
Who deem, because the Word as man's High Priest
Within the Holiest Sanctuary abides,
That never, as before His days of flesh,
He, Omnipresent, as in heaven, on earth
Reveals His glory to the sons of men
Or angels. Show'd He not Himself to Saul
Of Tarsus, as he near'd Damascus' gates?
And fell not John in Patmos at His feet?
And when unhappy Salem sank, as sinks
The blood-red sun in clouds of fiery storm,
Came He not in His royalty descending,
Smiting his foes, and rescuing His own
According to His word? Nor otherwise
When dragon ensigns fled before the Cross,
The Incarnate Lamb, beaming His beams of wrath,
Was present in the awful strife. And now
What time this last confederacy of hell
Was stricken to the heart, He stood and cried,
By man, but not by us unseen, unheard.

'That Morning Star, herald of dawn, diffused
Its radiance on all lands and distant isles,
Nor, brother, least on thine. Never again
Such midnight darkness whelm'd the earth. Far streaks
Of glory flush'd the heavens. Yet not the less
The God-enkindled flame. But stifled here,
The bright fire burst forth there in tenfold strength.
And when with better augury they breathed
Over the toilworn Church a sultry heat,
Mephitic, somnolent, the winds of God
Rushing tempestuous, and with lightnings wing'd,
Scatter'd the deadly sloth. For now appear'd,
Emerging from the heavenly sanctuary,
Seven angels, clad in priestly robes of white,
Each holding in his hand a golden vase,
Full of the wrath of God. These as they pour'd
Forth from their fiery censers one by one,
The earth was smitten by a noisome plague,
The sea became a pool of stagnant gore,
The rivers and the fountains flow'd with blood,
The old Euphrates dwindled in its bed
And ran a puny stream a child might wade,
While spirits malignant, by hell's triad urged,
Sped forth, gathering the nations and their kings
To Armageddon's battle-field. The while
Another angel, flying in mid-heaven,
Preach'd as he flew to every tribe and tongue
Evangel tidings of eternal love.
And on from watch to watch adown the streets
Of Zion pass'd the cry, 'Arise, behold
The Bridegroom cometh,' and the virgins rose
Who for long hours had slept, and trimm'd their lamps
And ready stood, waiting their Lord's return.

'Thus, brother, have I at thy suit retraced,
Though but in briefest retrospect, the fight
The militant Church hath foughten. Nor remains
Save that the latest censer of God's wrath
Be pour'd into the aerial firmament
Ere the shout echoes round the startled world,
'Great Babylon is fallen!' and the Prince
Leads forth His armies with triumphal palms
And hymning Hallelujahs, while His foes
Are crush'd before Him, and Himself assumes
The sceptre of His rightful universe.'

So Oriel spake; and while he spake mine eye
Moved not from reading his; such glorious thoughts,
Passing his own angelic tongue to' express,
Were written on his countenance. The more
He spake to me, the more I listen'd on and on
In raptured audience evermore. But now
After sweet interval in which he touch'd
The light chords of what seem'd a golden lute,
And to spontaneous gushing melodies
Sang from heaven's psalter one of those refrains
Whose faint far echo ravish'd David's soul; -
This ended, he turn'd to me and besought,
As he had open'd things unknown by me,
I would vouchsafe his earnest suit, and tell
What he had watch'd and guarded from without
But knew not from within, - my spirit's life
From its first dawn to noon: this he besought
With such unfeign'd humility, such grace,
Making it easy to refuse or grant,
That all my bosom open'd to his love,
So far as one may know another. Depths
There are in all no creature eye can read,
Sacred to God. But, as I told him all
That love may ask of perfection confidence,
Our hearts were knit for ever. I henceforth
Had claims on him who thus drank in my words,
A mute rapt listener. As the astronomer,
Who on the starry heavens the livelong night
Has gazed unwearied, in the dewy dawn
Returning homeward, plucks a simple flower,
Primrose, or clowslip, or anemone,
And in its tender beauties peering finds
More calm delight than in those mighty orbs
With all their pendent satellites: so then
My guardian with an elder brother's joy
Rested upon me in his love, the while
I told the humble story of my heart.

How long might there elapse of earthly time,
As thus upon that mountain range we sate
Communing, I knew not. But suddenly
A clear deep musical sound about us breathed,
Like to a silver trumpet blown far off,
From rocks to distant rocks reverberate,
As though the hills, instinct with harmony,
Themselves were live and vocal. And my guide
Sprang to his feet, and gazed intently' and long
Upon the blissful Paradise that smiled
Beneath us, while a flush of eager joy
Crimson'd his cheek, and quick words from his lips
Dropp'd hurriedly, - 'Brother, this is the first
Of the three trumpet signals fore-announced,
That usher in the long-expected close.
The first portends our tryst on yonder plains;
The second our ascent beneath the sword
Of Gabriel to the confines of the earth;
The third, the Bridal of the Lamb. But now
They need our presence yonder. Let us go.'

So saying, again he took my hand in his;
And swifter than the light of morn we pass'd
Down from those airy battlements, and soon,
Albeit the intervening space was far
As Atlas from the snowy Himalays,
Rejoin'd the multitudes of the redeem'd
With angels intermingled, rapidly
From every distant realm of Paradise
Within what seem'd one endless vale of flowers
Assembling, joy in every bounding step
And love past utterance stamp'd on every brow.