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 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT
 
 THE 
 MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUQHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 tfitocrsibe press, CambriDge 
 1902
 
 Copyright I poo by 
 Small, Maynard & Company 
 
 {Incorporated} 
 
 Entered at Stationers' Hall
 
 To E. D. S.
 
 PRELUDE 
 
 The action falls immediately before the Incarnation
 
 Persons of the Prelude 
 
 RAPHAEL 
 URIEL 
 
 THE ANGEL OF THE PALE HORSE 
 
 A SHEPHERD 
 
 A SHEPHERD BOY 
 
 A YOUNG MAN (persona muta) 
 
 A GIRL
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 A meadow and coppice near the sea ; beyond low 
 hiUs the roofs of a town. Dawn. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Another night like this would change my blood 
 To human: the soft tumult of the sea 
 Under the moon, the panting of the stars, 
 The notes of querulous love from pool and clod, 
 In earth and air the dreamy under-hum 
 Of hived hearts swarming, such another night 
 "Would quite unsphere me from my angelhood! 
 Thrice have I touched my lute's least human 
 
 strings 
 And hushed their throbbing, hearing how they 
 
 spake 
 
 Sheer earthly, they that once so heavenly sang 
 Above the pure unclouded psalmody. 
 Sing as thou wilt, then, since thou needs must 
 
 sing! 
 
 For ever song grows dearer as I walk 
 These evenings of large sunset, these dumb noons 
 Vastly suspended, these enormous nights 
 Through which earth heaves her bulk toward 
 
 the dawn. 
 With song I shelter me, who else were left 
 
 3
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Defenceless amid God's infinitudes, 
 Bruised by the unshod trample of his hours. 
 
 (He sings. ) 
 
 The late moon would not stay, 
 The stars grow far and few ; 
 Into her house of day 
 Hung with Sidonian blue 
 Stealeth the earth, as a maenad girl 
 Steals to her home when the orgies are o'er 
 That startled the glens and the sleeping shore, 
 And up from the passionate deeps of night 
 Into the shallows and straits of light 
 Softly the forests whirl. 
 
 Laugh, earth ! For thy feigning-face is wise ; 
 There is naught so clear as thy morning eyes; 
 And the sun thy lord is an easy lord ! 
 What should they be to him, 
 Thine hours of dance in the woodland dim, 
 The brandished torch and the shouted word, 
 The flight, the struggle, the honeyed swoon 
 Neath the wild, wild lips of the moon 1 
 
 Beyond the seaward screen of hazel boughs 
 The waves flash argent 'neath the clambering 
 
 light; 
 But wherefore do these wondrous colours run
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Out of the place of morning ? The young leaves 
 Are swept and winnowed upward as a flame, 
 And in their whispering glories swiftly dawns 
 A shape of lordly wings, each plume distinct 
 With dyes auroral. Where, 'mid store of light, 
 Most spiritual silver burns, a face comes through. 
 My comrade Uriel cometh from the sun ! 
 
 Uriel (appearing). 
 Why tamest on thine errand, Eaphael t 
 
 Raphael. 
 I do no errand here. 
 
 Uriel. 
 Why earnest thou then? 
 
 Eaphael. 
 
 Since earth is dear to me. Sometimes it seems 
 Treading the prairie's autumn sibilance, 
 Or when the tongues of summer lightning speak 
 In the corners of the cloud I could forget 
 My station 'mid the deathless hierarchies, 
 And change into a clot of anxious clay. 
 
 Uriel. 
 Mock not, sweet brother ! thou who knowest 
 
 well 
 Better than I or Michael or the rest
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 The throes that shake these clots of passionate 
 
 clay; 
 Knowest their lewd harsh blood, their shell of 
 
 sense 
 So frail, so piteously contrived for pain. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 I dare to say how little jest it was. 
 Oft, as I leave these sliding shafts of dark, 
 And homeward climb the immaterial cliffs, 
 My heart makes question which were worthier 
 
 state 
 
 For a free soul to choose, angelic calm, 
 Angelic vision, ebbless, increscent, 
 Or earth-life with its Teachings and recoils, 
 Its lewd harsh blood so swift to change and flower 
 At the least touch of love, its shell of sense 
 So subtly made to minister them delight, 
 So frail, so piteously contrived for pain. 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 Brother, thou dost not well to wander here. 
 If thou wilt roam, choose some less troubled star. 
 The roaring midst of the insatiate sun 
 Where God has set my watch, is peace to this ! 
 Of all the bitter drops that dewed His brow 
 In his old agony, this earth-drop fell 
 
 6
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Most bitter salt, and ever since hath been 
 Fuller of travailling than other worlds. 
 
 Raphael. 
 Thy speech is dark. I understand it not. 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 Of a dark thing I speak a few dark words. 
 Put from thy gaze the sweet bloom of these hills 
 And all this gorgeous dapple of the sea, 
 And let thy memory stand again with me 
 On Time's untrodden threshold, that first day 
 Which searched and stung our immemorial 
 
 peace 
 
 With pangs of vernal influence. Heaven rose 
 As if from sleep, and, lo ! through all the void 
 Clambered and curled creation like a vine, 
 Hanging the dark with clusters of young bloom. 
 Then from the viewless ever-folded heart 
 Of the mystic Eose, stole breath and pulse of 
 
 change, 
 
 Delicious pantings such as seize the breast 
 Of lovers when the love- tide nears its flood, 
 Yet touched with endless potency of pain, 
 As lips of mothers when their anguish ebbs 
 And leaves the waifling life. Then first the 
 
 Dove
 
 THE MASQUE OP JUDGMENT 
 
 Began to mourn above the mercy-seat, 
 
 And the dear sister spirits of the Lamps 
 
 Bent all their shimmering wings one way to 
 
 screen 
 Their wicks from the wind-flaw. Large with 
 
 question turned 
 
 Angelic eyes to archangelic eyes, 
 Archangels laid changed lips to the ears of 
 
 Thrones, 
 
 Thrones gazed at Dominations, Powers made sign 
 To Principalities ; but not one dared, 
 Voicing the fear that filled him, to cry, "Lord, 
 What hast Thou brought upon Thy kingdom, 
 
 Thou 
 Ancient of Days ! ' ' Their silence was right 
 
 well. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 All this the meditative spirits oft 
 
 Have pondered. But thy meaning still is dark. 
 
 Uriel. 
 Ourselves who questioned why the world was 
 
 made 
 
 Were born of the same questionable seed, 
 And we who feared were the first cause of fear. 
 Of a dark thing I speak a few dark words. 
 Of old the mind of God, coiled on itself 
 
 8
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 In contemplation single and eterne, 
 Felt suddenly a stealing wistfulness 
 Sully the essence of his old content 
 With pangs of dim division. Long He strove 
 Against his bosom's deep necessity, 
 Then, groping for surcease, put forth the orbs 
 Of Paradise, with all their imagery, 
 And the ordered hierarchies where we stand ; 
 Some sharing more in his essential calm, 
 Some, rebel spirits, banished now or quelled, 
 The ill-starred sons of his disquietude, 
 Disquietude not quenched when fell the pride 
 Of Lucifer, long bastioned in the North. 
 Demand of joy, hardly to be gainsaid, 
 And vast necessity of grief, still worked 
 Compulsive in his breast : our essence calm, 
 Those lucid orbs accordant, could not bring 
 Nepenthe long. His hand He still withheld 
 Ages of ages, fearing the event, 
 Till, bathed in brighter urge and wistfulness 
 He put forth suddenly this vine of Time 
 And hung the hollow dark with passionate 
 change. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 I think for me Heaven seemed not Heaven till 
 
 then, 
 When from our seats of peace we could behold 
 
 9
 
 THE MASQUE OP JUDGMENT 
 
 The strife of ripening suns and withering moons, 
 
 Marching of ice-floes, and the nameless wars 
 
 Of monster races laboring to be man j 
 
 When we could hear the wrestle of hoarse sound 
 
 Hurl gust on gust obscurely toward the time 
 
 Of disinvolvM music : till at last, 
 
 Standing erect amid the giant fern 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 At last ! At last ! O shaken Breast, nowhere 
 Couldst thou find quiet save in putting forth 
 This last imagination ? Could no form 
 Of being stanch thee in thy groping thought 
 Save this of Man? Puny and terrible ; 
 Apt to imagine powers beyond himself 
 In wind and lightning ; cunning to evoke 
 From mould and flint-stone the surprising fire, 
 And carve the heavy hills to spiritual shapes 
 Of town and temple ; nursing in his veins 
 More restlessness than called him from the void, 
 Perfidies, hungers, dreams, idolatries, 
 Pain, laughter, wonder, anger, sex, and song ! 
 
 Raphael. 
 God had one other thought, more sweet, more 
 
 dire; 
 Thy latest words remind thee. 
 
 10
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 (Behind the trees a girl's voice sings : ) 
 O daughters of Jerusalem ! 
 What said ye unto her 
 Who took her love by the garment's hem, 
 Where the tanned grape-gatherers were ? 
 Did any go down and see 
 If she led him into her house ? 
 Or was it aloft where the wild harts flee, 
 Was it high in the hills, ' neath the cedar- tree, 
 That she kissed him and called him spouse ? 
 
 (A young man and a girl come over the hill from 
 the town. ) 
 
 UrieL Unto man 
 
 Woman was due. To hearts of fire more fire, 
 To pride of strength a still subduing strength. 
 
 (As they pass through the coppice, the girl sings : ) 
 O keepers of the city walls ! 
 Have ye taken her veil away, 
 Whose hasting feet and low love-calls 
 Ye heard at the drop of day ? 
 Have ye taken her ankle-rings, 
 Who is fair, who hath eyes like a dove ? 
 Must she seek her lover, her king of kings, 
 Naked, stripped of her costly things I 
 Must she have no garment but love 1 
 
 11
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 A mountain glade and forest. Midnight. 
 
 Shepherd. 
 
 Here stand, if thou wilt see, by this great bole. 
 This way they passed, and hither should return. 
 But pray thee, gentle god, when they draw near 
 Abate the splendor of thy face, fold close 
 Thine eyed and irised plumage. God thou art, 
 But thou must needs be mighty to escape 
 The hill girls when they rage ! From these old 
 
 boughs 
 
 The climbing moon will soon pour deeper shade 
 To screen thee more. 
 
 Raphael. 
 How looked they when they passed ? 
 
 Shepherd Boy. 
 
 Coney, how passed the hailstorm o'er, quotha ! 
 Patter ! patter ! 'twas sung beneath i' the dark. 
 I lost a birch cup full of whortleberries 
 Scrambling to cover when I heard their songs. 
 But when they burst across the glade, I peeped, 
 And saw their breasts gleam through their angry 
 hair. 
 
 12
 
 THE MASQUE OP JUDGMENT 
 
 Evoe ! they had snared the village lad 
 They hanker for so long. I hear them talk, 
 Dawdling on well- curbs with their water- skins 
 Or picking the May-apples. 
 
 Shepherd. 
 
 'Tis the lad 
 
 Who sat mute at the merry threshing-stead, 
 Turned from their orgies in the sacred wood 
 With large bright eyes unamorous, and sang 
 In lonesome places piercing lonesome songs 
 Of other lives and other gods than theirs 
 Perchance of thee and thy bright- winged mates, 
 If mates be thine, for god thou surely art. 
 
 Shepherd Boy. 
 
 To-night they have him limed ! Brow of the 
 
 hawk, 
 Throat of the hermit- thrush, and ring-dove eyes ! 
 
 Shepherd. 
 He came across the moon-drench dragged by 
 
 three 
 
 Whose bodies shone like the peeled willow wand ; 
 The little snakes they knot into their hair 
 Lipping his neck, where oozed the red of grapes 
 From his crushed garland ; his hands flung aloft 
 
 13
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 To the symbol of their fierce licentious god. 
 His eyes were large and fixed, his lips apart, 
 As I have seen him in the lonesome woods, 
 But madder than the maddest bacchant there ! 
 
 Raphael. 
 Who cometh yonder ! 
 
 Shepherd. 
 Where? 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Across the glade. 
 
 Shepherd. 
 I see nought. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 There, behind the trailing mist. 
 The moonlight gathers to a ghostly shape, 
 Unearthly silver, throbbing like a heart ! 
 It seems a beast and rider. 
 
 (The shepherds make off. ) 
 
 Ah, I know 
 
 That icy influence, and the voice I know, 
 First heard in Heaven when time began to be, 
 A voice above our voices, and a hush 
 Beneath our hush, freezing the heart with fear, 
 With fear the heart even of spirit-kind. . . . 
 
 14
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 The Angel of the Pale Horse (sings). 
 
 The scourge of the wrath of God 
 
 We swing and we stay : 
 
 (Rest, my steed, rest /) 
 
 On the green of the hill we have trod, 
 
 And the green is grey. 
 
 Ours is his scourging rod. 
 
 Tea, thy hoofs long to be fleet 
 
 On the annied hills ; 
 
 ( Yet rest, my steed, rest /) 
 
 Scent of the arrowy sleet 
 
 Broadens thy nostrils ; 
 
 The mown field smelleth sweet. 
 
 God giveth his loins' increase 
 
 Into our hand ; 
 
 (Best, my steed, rest /) 
 
 We shall establish his peace 
 
 By sea and by land. 
 
 Soon shall their troubling cease ! 
 
 Raphael. 
 What makes thine errand here! 
 
 Angel of the Pale Horse. 
 
 Still as of old. 
 15
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Raphael. 
 I think thou art way- wandered. Here is life. 
 
 Angel of the Pale Horse 
 My horse's feet err not ; they are way- wise. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Stand by me in the shade of these old boughs, 
 And let no anger fan thy wings alight 
 Or flake the nostrils of thy horse with fire 
 When the young bacchants halloo down the 
 
 steep. 
 
 Angel of the Pale Horse. 
 
 Thou feedest thy giddy and half- human mind 
 Still on these little spectacles of change, 
 Forgetting Heaven's great woes ! 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 What woe can come 
 Into those courts of old oeatitude ? 
 
 Angel of the Pale Horse. 
 Hast thou not felt its presence there 1 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Yes nay 
 
 I know not . . . When I enter Heaven gate, 
 Fear comes upon me, for I seem to feel 
 
 16
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Some subtle waning of accustomed joy, 
 Some dying off of music thin, minute, 
 As the single cricket amid chorusing fields, 
 Whose ceasing breaks the rapture. Often, too, 
 Wan faces shun me in the woods of light 
 And voices of vague dolor die away 
 Along the living lilies as I come. 
 But this I held a phantasy of dream, 
 Bred of too earnest looking on the blight 
 That falls on mortal things. 
 
 Angel of the Pale Horse. 
 
 It is no dream ; 
 
 Though more mysterious, more dark than dream. 
 Momently fades the splendor, momently 
 Silence and dissonance like eating moths 
 Scatter corruption on the choiring orbs. 
 
 Raphael. 
 No one declares the cause ? 
 
 Angel of the Pale Horse. 
 
 The cause is here, 
 
 Here in the vagrant courses of the moon, 
 Who makes her lair and wanders for her love 
 After her own loose law ; in yonder stars, 
 Gay spendthrifts of their plenitude of fire ; 
 In this most dissolute earth, who decks herself 
 
 17
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 With gorgeous phantasy and delicate whim, 
 And paces forth before the worlds to dance 
 A maiden measure, modest lids downcast 
 To hide her harlot's guile ; but more than these, 
 And more than all, unutterably more, 
 Here in the wild and sinful heart of man, 
 Of all the fruits upon creation's vine 
 The thirstiest one to drain the vital breast 
 Of God, wherein it grows. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Too fiery sweet 
 
 Gushes the liquor from the vine He set, 
 Man the broad leaf and maid the honeyed flower ! 
 
 ( The shepherds creep batik, and stand peering from 
 behind the tree at the angels. ) 
 
 Raphael (musing). 
 
 "What if they rendered up their wills to His f 
 Hushed and subdued their personality f 
 Became as members of the living tree? 
 
 Angel of tJie Pale Horse. 
 
 A whisper grows, various from tongue to tongue, 
 That so He will attempt. Those who consent 
 To render up their clamorous wills to Him, 
 
 18
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 To merge their fretful being in his peace, 
 He will accept : the rest He will destroy. 
 
 {The loy whispers to Rapliael.} 
 
 Raphael. 
 What wilt thou, little friend ? 
 
 Shepherd Boy. 
 
 Hither, sweet god ! But let the ghostly centaur 
 stay behind. 
 
 Shepherd. 
 
 Lean o'er this rock and look into the gorge. 
 See how their torches dip from ledge to ledge. 
 They race beside some shape the torrent bears : 
 The eddies seize it now, and leaning out 
 Over the pool they stop to howl their hymns, 
 And, now it plunges, how they madden down 
 With laughter keen above the drumming foam ! 
 
 Raphael. 
 Is't not a man's torn trunk? 
 
 Shepherd Boy. 
 
 See those behind 
 
 Grasping the antlers of the lunging stag, 
 That bellows when their torches bite his flanks ! 
 I know the witch who rides him ! 
 
 19
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Come away ! 
 
 That is a bleeding head she holds aloft 
 Above the clutching of her comrades' hands ! 
 
 Shepherd Boy. 
 
 No more thou'lt shun their orgies in the wood, 
 Throat of the hermit-thrush and ring-dove eyes ! 
 Throat of the mourning thrush, thy songs are 
 
 done j 
 Sad ring-dove eyes, the lids have shut you in ! 
 
 Shepherd. 
 
 That is his harp the dancers bear before, 
 Mocking his solemn songs of other gods 
 And other lives than theirs. 
 
 Raphael (musing). 
 
 Those who consent 
 He will accept : the rest he will destroy ! 
 
 Shepherd Boy. 
 Look ! look ! the ghostly centaur goeth down. 
 
 20
 
 A C T I. 
 
 Time : as in the Prelude
 
 Persons of the Masque 
 
 RAPHAEL 
 URIEL 
 MICHAEL 
 AZAZIEL 
 
 THE ANGEL OF THE PALE HORSE 
 THE ANGEL OF THE WHITE HORSE 
 THE ANGEL OF THE RED HORSE 
 SPIRITS OF THE THRONE-LAMPS 
 THE LION OF THE THRONE 
 THE EAGLE OF THE THRONE 
 THE ANGEL OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE 
 SPIRITS OF THE SAVED 
 SPIRITS OF THE LOST 
 MOON-SPIRITS 
 VOICES 
 
 22
 
 ACT I. SCENE I. 
 
 A high mountain pass, down which flows a brook, 
 with pools and waterfalls. Early morning. 
 
 Raphael (climbing, sings). 
 On earth all is well, all is well on the sea ; 
 Though the day breaks dull 
 All is well. 
 
 Ere the thunder had ceased to yell 
 I flew through the wash of the sea 
 Wing and wing with my brother the gull. 
 On the crumbling comb of the swell, 
 With the spindrift slashing to lee, 
 Poised we ; 
 
 The petrel thought us asleep 
 Till sidewise round on stiffened wing, 
 Keen and taut to take the swing 
 With the glass-green avalanches in their swerv- 
 ing plunge and sweep, 
 Down the glassy, down the prone, 
 Swift as swerving thunder-stone, 
 We shot the green crevasses 
 And we hallooed down the passes 
 Of the deep. 
 
 On earth all is well, all is well. 
 
 In the weeds of the beach lay the shell 
 
 23
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 With the sleeper within, 
 
 And the pulse of the sleeper showed through 
 
 The walls of his delicate house 
 
 That will wake with the sun into silver and 
 
 purple and blue. 
 
 Where the creek makes out and the sea makes in 
 Between the low cliff-brows 
 Was borne the talk of the aldered linn 
 Matching the meadow's subtile din ; 
 And hark, from the grey high overhead 
 The lark's keen joy was shed ! 
 For what though the morning sulky was 
 And the punctual sun belated, 
 His nest was snug in the tufted grass, 
 Soft-lined and stoutly plaited, 
 And shine sun may or stay away 
 Nests must be celebrated ! 
 
 Drowsy with dawn, barely asail, 
 Buzzes the blue-bottle over the shale, 
 Scared from the pool by the leaping trout ; 
 And the brood of turtlings clamber out 
 On the log by their oozy house. 
 Bound the roots of the cresses and stems of the ferns 
 The muskrat goes by dodges and turns ; 
 Till she has seized her prey she heeds not the 
 whine of her mouse. 
 
 24
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Lovingly, spitefully, each 
 
 Kind unto kind makes speech ; 
 
 Marriage and birth and war, passion and hunger 
 
 and thirst, 
 Song and plotting and dream, as it was meant 
 
 from the first ! 
 
 (He climbs higher, and sings. ) 
 
 Peering in the dust I thought 
 "How all creatures, small and great, 
 For his pleasure God hath wrought ! " 
 
 When I saw the robins mate 
 Low I sang unto my harp, 
 "Happy, happy, His estate ! 
 
 "Down curved spaces He may warp 
 With old planets ; long and long, 
 Where the snail doth tease and carp, 
 
 "Asking with its jellied prong, 
 A whole summer He may bide, 
 Wondrous tiny lives among, 
 Curious, unsatisfied." 
 
 (Still climbing. ) 
 
 The trees grow stunted in this keener air, 
 And scarce the hardiest blossoms dare to take 
 Assurance from the sun. Southward the rocks 
 
 25
 
 Boast mosses and a poor increase of flowers, 
 But all the northern shelters hold their snow. 
 Such flowers as come, come not quite flower- 
 like, 
 
 But smitten from their gracious habitudes 
 By some alarm, some vast and voiceless cry 
 That just has ceased to echo ere I came. 
 These white buds stand unnaturally white, 
 Breathing no odors till their terror pass ; 
 Those grey souk toss their arms into the wind, 
 Peer through their locks with bright distracted 
 
 eyes 
 
 And hug the elfin horror to their breasts 
 Poor brain-turned gypsy wildlings, doomed to 
 
 birth 
 
 In this uneasy region ! . . . Yonder lift 
 The outposts of the habitable land. 
 Ages of looking on the scene beyond 
 Have worn the granite into shapes of woe 
 And old disaster. 
 
 (lie climbs higher , to where the ravine debouches 
 into the Valley of the Judgment. ) 
 
 Each time when I stand 
 Upon the borders of this monstrous place, 
 I still must question wherefore it was flung 
 Thus ruinous with toppled peak and scaur, 
 
 26
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Sheer from the morning cliffs that hold up 
 
 Heaven 
 
 To nether caverns where no foot of man 
 Has clambered down, nor eye of angel dared 
 To spy upon the sluggish denizens, 
 If any dwell so deep. What giant plow 
 Harnessed to behemoth and mastodon 
 Set this slope furrow down the side of the world ? 
 And to what harvest? . . . Here the sons of 
 
 men, 
 
 Living and dead and yet unborn, might come 
 Unto the final judgment ; here the lost 
 Might make one desperate stand. . . . What 
 
 moveth there? 
 
 What leonine and winged shape is he 
 Steals up yon gorge all desolate of light 
 Whence voices of fierce-tongued and desperate 
 
 streams 
 Sound faint as throats of nooning doves? Till 
 
 now 
 
 Never have I beheld a living thing 
 Amid these wastes. What manner beast is he 
 That he hath power to awe me, though removed 
 So far the fallen vastness of a cliff 
 Wherefrom a temple might be quarried, looks 
 Fit for a shepherd's sling? . . . Surely he 
 
 comes 
 
 27
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 From nameless battle yonder in the depths ; 
 But whither steals he homeward there aloft! 
 What lair is his cloud-hidden in the snows, 
 Whose mates and loves wait 'neath the desert 
 
 palms 
 
 To hear him tell his deed? Huge was the fight 
 That left that mighty prowess broken so ! 
 For sorely is he broken : now he stops 
 And lies exhausted by an icy pool, 
 Now labors up the shale, skirts the bald top, 
 Drops with fierce caution down the further 
 
 slope 
 Eyeing the next hard pass. I wonder . . . ? 
 
 No 
 
 Strange ! 'twas a blood- drop fell upon that flower 
 A-tremble from the brink. Another here 
 Upon the ground- moss nay, upon my hand 
 It falls all round me ! . . . {Looking upward) 
 
 Ah, an eagle goes 
 
 Lame from the battle, mate or duellist 
 Of him who crept by yonder. Even here 
 I see the vast wings, shattered and unpenned, 
 Almost refuse their labor ; now he swerves 
 To rest upon a needled dolomite, 
 Then upward grievously another stage 
 Toward some sad eyrie where his heart abides. 
 
 28
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 I too must seek my eyrie sad enough, 
 Since there my heart abides not any more, 
 Amid the waste infinitudes of light 
 Missing the flow of day, the refluent dark ; 
 Amid the bliss of unconcerning eyes 
 Eemembering woman's anguish, man's resolve, 
 Youth's wistful darling guess, kindled and 
 
 quenched 
 
 And quenched and kindled yet a little year 
 In eyes too frail to hold their meaning long 
 Where chance and enmity conspire with death. 
 
 (He flies up the VaMey.) 
 
 29
 
 ACT I. SCENE II. 
 
 Above the peaks that crown the head of the Valley 
 of Judgment. 
 
 Raphael (flying). 
 
 Soon will the cliffs of Heaven give easier way, 
 For though my heart grows human, yet my frame 
 With immaterial things accordance keeps, 
 And to my feet these spiritual hills 
 Feel native, and the climate kind to breathe ; 
 Still kindlier for the shredded mist of song . 
 That wanders here at morning and at eve 
 Whispering witless words and prophecy. 
 
 Voices (above). 
 
 Through the vines of tangled light 
 In the jungles of the sun 
 Swept the Hunter in his might 
 And his lion-beagle dun 
 Gaped for prey to left and right. 
 
 O'er the passes of the moon 
 Strode the Hunter in his wrath : 
 The eagle sniffed the icy noon, 
 " Master, knowest thou the path! 
 Shall we meet thy foe-man soon f 
 
 30
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 " On what interstellar plain, 
 'Mid what comet's blinding haze, 
 Storm of star dust, meteor rain, 
 Shall we spy his crouching gaze, 
 Leap at him, and end thy pain? " 
 
 Peace is on the heavenly meres, 
 Sabbath lies on Paradise ; 
 But the little Throne-lamp fears, 
 For she sees the Master's eyes, 
 And she tastes the Master's tears. 
 
 Eaphael. 
 
 Many an age your song has hovered round 
 This theme of Heaven's distress. What mean ye 
 
 now? 
 
 "Was that the lion-hound of which ye sing 
 Crept wounded hither, masterless, this hour ? 
 
 Voices (as before). 
 Where had his gadding spirit led? 
 Beside what peopled water-head 
 Stooped he, or on what sleeping face 
 Was he intent the dream to trace ? 
 Had creature love upon him fawned 
 Or had he drunk of mortal mirth 
 That he knew not what a morning dawned 
 
 31
 
 Over his darling earth ? 
 Heard not the storm, heard not the cries, 
 Heard not the talk of the startled skies 
 Over the guilty earth 1 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Those dubious voices fade, and in their stead 
 Succeeds a sound more anxious and perturbed, 
 Voices and mutterings of supernal wrath 
 Or whisperings of fear. . . . Ah, there aloft 
 Upon the beetling rosy crag they stand, 
 The pale horse and the white horse and the 
 
 red ! 
 
 What rage vermilions his expanded wing ? 
 Why streams his mane so fiery on the wind 
 Back from h'is staring eyeballs? What should 
 
 make 
 
 His brother's steady candor pulse and throb 
 And falter like the light on cavern walls 
 Eocked under by the tide ? O never yet 
 Did the pale horse seem terrible as now, 
 Pawing the margent cliff and snorting down 
 Pale fire into the Valley ! . . . Brothers, hail ! 
 I fare from outland. Tell me what befalls. 
 
 Angel of the White Horse. 
 He strays too much abroad. He hath not heard.
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Angel of the Pale Horse. 
 
 They say that he has lived too much in the sun 
 And waxes mortal, mortal. We shall see. 
 
 Angel of the Red Horse. 
 Saw'st thou aught stirring in the valley deeps? 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Far down below a beast crept wounded hither. 
 Why gaze ye on each other thus aghast t 
 
 Angel of the Red Horse. 
 Cast ye that way the passes and denies ! 
 This way will I. 
 
 (The Angels of the Horses disappear.) 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 What news has spread concern 
 Even to these marks and purlieus of God's 
 dream ? 
 
 Below the sun's pale rim a paleness moves, 
 Grows larger, blots the disc with deepening 
 
 light. . . . 
 
 And now above the Valley treads a shape 
 Too lordly to be aught but Uriel ! 
 
 33
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Poised on a peak he halts to gaze behind ; 
 Now wingeth nearer, in the Eagle's track 
 
 Uriel {approaching}. 
 Hail, brother. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Hail ! Saw'st thou the fight below? 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 Of what I saw I cannot spell the sense, 
 Too darkly hid for me ! 
 
 Eaphael. 
 
 Share me at least 
 Thy news, though scant. That winged and 
 
 brindled bulk, 
 
 Whence came it and what quarry did it seek f 
 And the great eagle, was it mate or foef 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 No earthly beast it was, no earthly bird, 
 Seeking no earthly quarry. More than this 
 I know not how to say, ere I have mused 
 Where in the sun's core light and thought are 
 one. 
 
 Eaphael. 
 
 But yet conjecture clamors at thy heart. 
 34
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 Thou knowest what whispers are abroad in 
 
 Heaven ; 
 
 How God pines ever for his broken dream, 
 Broken by vague division, whence who knows ! 
 And pangs of restless love too strong to quench 
 Save by the putting of creation forth, 
 Quenched then but for a moment, since the 
 
 worlds 
 
 He made to soothe Him only vex Him more, 
 Being compact of passion, violent, 
 Exceeding quarrelsome, and in their midst 
 Man the arch-troubler. Fainter whispers say 
 He ponders how to win his prodigal 
 By some extremity to render back 
 The heritage abused, to merge again 
 Each individual will into His will : 
 Till when, his pangs increase. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 A nine days' tale. 
 I hold Him no such weakling ! Yet . . . and 
 
 yet ... 
 
 I have beheld ... I know not . . . pallor couched 
 On brows that wont to beacon ; through the orbs 
 Quivers of twilight, hints and flecks of 
 change. . . . 
 
 35
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 We cannot be, we would not be, I deem, 
 The same as ere space was, or time began 
 To trellis there life's wild and various bloom. 
 "We linger. Let me hear. 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 Some things He made 
 Out of his wistfulness, his ecstasy, 
 And made them lovely fair ; yet other some 
 Out of his loathing, out of his remorse, 
 Out of chagrin at the antinomy 
 Cleaving his nature ; these are monstrous shapes, 
 Whereof the most abhorred one dwells below 
 Within the caves and aged wells of dark 
 Toward which this Valley plunges. There it 
 
 waits 
 Hoarding its ugly strength till time be full. 
 
 Raphael. 
 How nam'st thou him ? 
 
 Uriel 
 
 The spirits meditative 
 
 Darkly name him : The Worm that Dieth not, 
 Perhaps the scourge reserved for those who prove 
 ^Rebellious in the event, perhaps himself 
 Scourge of the Scourger, biding but his hour 
 
 36
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 To 'venge his miscreation. So lie lies, 
 
 A thing most opposite to spirit-kind, 
 
 Most hated by the Four who guard the Throne, 
 
 Within the viewless panoply of light 
 
 Immediately ministrant. To them, 
 
 But to the Lion and the Eagle most, 
 
 Is given to gaze in the Eternal eyes 
 
 Like hounds about a hunter's knee, that watch 
 
 Each passion written on their master's brow, 
 
 And having read his trouble, steal away 
 
 To taste the troubler's flesh beneath their fangs. 
 
 So stole away the Lion of the Throne, 
 
 The Eagle for his aid. Beneath the moon 
 
 Last night I came upon them stealing down, 
 
 Too eager on the scent to mark my flight. 
 
 Even to the splintered curb of the last profound 
 
 I followed, and thence heard the battle rage 
 
 Bellowed above by the loath elements, 
 
 Till dawn showed in the east, an ashen dawn 
 
 Clotted and drizzled o'er with sullen light. 
 
 Raphael. 
 Their hearts were faithful. They were fain to 
 
 save 
 
 The Master from some sad extremity. . . . 
 But not in yonder depths, alas, doth lie 
 The arch-foe of his peace. Would it were so ! 
 
 37
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 A monster bred to hatred in the dark. 
 "Would it were so ! not rather, as we fear, 
 Man the uplifted stature, the proud mind, 
 The laughter ! 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 Speedily our doubt shall end, 
 For not much more delayeth the event. 
 My watch is set within the sun, and thither 
 My hour constrains me. 
 
 Eaphael. 
 Heavenward I. Farewell ! 
 
 38
 
 ACT I. SCENE III. 
 
 A garden in Heaven. The Eagle sits on the Tree 
 of Knowledge ; the Lion and the Angel of the White 
 Horse rest beneath. 
 
 Angel of the White Horse. 
 
 Deep in the purple umbrage droops the bird, 
 His sick eye sealed beneath the weary lid 
 Which scarce his right wing's torn and gaping 
 
 gold 
 
 Disfeathered hideth, since long hours ago 
 He sidewise tucked his wounded head away, 
 Shunning the light's offence ; and through the 
 
 boughs 
 
 Let sink this mighty pinion sinister 
 A vast and ruined length, whereof the plumes 
 That yesterday planed sunlike o'er the Throne 
 Are all blood-rusted now and misted on 
 "With obscure breathings of a nadir clime. 
 Between the Lion's paws a thousand flowers 
 Have withered since he laid him groaning down, 
 And in uneasy slumber racked with dreams 
 Flingeth at whiles a sanguine froth abroad 
 To sear what rests of herbage or of bloom 
 Unwithered by his breath. They saw me not 
 
 39
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Though close I tracked them up the cloudy 
 
 heights, 
 Nor once have marked me through the exhausted 
 
 hours 
 While here I wait the time to question them. 
 
 Hark ! in their dreams they speak, and in their 
 
 dreams 
 Do act again their awful enterprise. 
 
 The Eagle. 
 
 Creep softly, softly ! Heaven's streets are still, 
 Each seraph sentry drowseth on his hill, 
 The winds of song are folded, and as flowers 
 Folded are all the domes and dreaming towers. 
 Creep softly, softly ; I am with thee, mate ! 
 Softly I soar above the shrouded gate, 
 And till thou comest past the warding swords 
 Lone in the outer moonlight I will wait. 
 
 The Lion. 
 
 Wing swiftly ! For the walls of chrysopras 
 Have melted at my roar to let me pass ; 
 But Heaven is up and peers with mazed eyes, 
 And wings are weighed to hinder our emprise. 
 Wing swiftly, swiftly, down the glooming air, 
 Past cloud and precipice and mountain stair, 
 
 40
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 For ere another morning drowns the stars 
 We must have met the Worm within his lair. 
 
 The Eagle. 
 
 Drear are the depths, O brother, 
 Bitter the fight ! 
 Vainly we stand by each other. 
 Thy might and my might 
 Are as straw, in the flame and the smother. 
 
 Angel of the White Horse. 
 O ye familiars benedite, 
 Who, hidden in the eternal glow, 
 Keep guard about the Throne, 
 What things were given to your sight 
 Ere to the hold of such a foe 
 Ye dared to venture down ? 
 
 The Lion (awaking). 
 Ages and ages we gazed, 
 Stricken at heart and amazed, 
 Till the morning look 
 From, His brow was strook, 
 Silver and vair 
 In the flame of his hair 
 And his lip with anguish crazed.
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 "My heart must unburden its hate. 
 
 I will walk through the pathless woods 
 
 Where the wild stars hatch their broods, 
 
 I will girdle the steppes 
 
 Where the meteor creeps 
 
 Like a slug on the rimy sward. 
 
 Perhaps at the trampled brink 
 
 Where the Bear goes down to drink, 
 
 Perhaps where on the purple leas 
 
 Dance the young Pleiades, 
 
 Somewhere at length 
 
 I shall laugh in my strength 
 
 Spying the Shape abhorred, 
 
 Somewhere at last 
 
 I shall break my fast 
 
 On the flesh of the Foe of the Lord ! " 
 
 The Eagle. 
 
 Wearily thou crept' st back 
 Sore from the track ; 
 
 Thy hide was torn and thy tongue was black. 
 Long thou did'st slumber and deep. 
 
 The Lion. 
 
 A voice came in my sleep 
 Saying, " Why wander so far ? 
 Nearhand lieth the earth 
 
 42
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Full of rumors of war, 
 
 Of passion and pride no dearth. 
 
 There in his cavern cold 
 
 Lurketh the Dragon old ; 
 
 He lies and pastures, plain to see, 
 
 On God's heart, sluggishly, 
 
 As once he sucked of the fruits of gold 
 
 Ages ago, on the Eden tree. 
 
 Angel of the White Horse. 
 Hearken ! A wind walks in the Tree 
 Though the lily- heads are still, 
 From bough to bough inscrutably 
 It feeleth out its will ; 
 And now the leaves, atremble long, 
 Utter impulsive song. 
 
 The Angel of the Tree. 
 
 Not in the loosened whirlwinds that invade 
 The sun's white core with shade, 
 Not in the wandering tribes of fire that sweep 
 With rapine through the deep, 
 Not in the venom of the caverned Worm 
 That drowseth out his term, 
 Nay, not in these or aught akin to these 
 Consisteth of God's groaning and disease 
 The incorporeal germ. 
 
 43
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Though all that He hath made 
 
 Rebels and is exceeding turbulent, 
 
 Though all his loins' increase 
 
 Go after pleasures other than He meant, 
 
 And with excessive claims 
 
 Drain and defile the founts of his content, 
 
 Yet only one of all the shapes He brought 
 
 Out of the gulfs of thought, 
 
 One only creature of his quickening hands 
 
 Hath from its brow 
 
 With reckless laugh and with reiterate vow 
 
 Stripped clean away all decencies and shames ; 
 
 Till with continual strife 
 
 And divagant demands 
 
 Of separate life, 
 
 The searching and the scornful heart of Man 
 
 God's inmost being maims. 
 
 The Eagle. 
 
 For naught have my wings been broken, 
 Vain are the wounds of thy paws ! 
 Hark what the Tree hath spoken. 
 
 Angel of the Pale Horse. 
 Hush ! For a murmur shakes the bloom 
 That once drank Eden dew, 
 A shadowed wind like a word of doom 
 Darkens the branches through. 
 
 44
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 The Angel of the Tree. 
 Now draweth on the time declared of old 
 When He shall make division of the fold, 
 Shall winnow out the kernels from the chaff, 
 Shall tread his grapes, and in a silver cup 
 Chalice the good wine up 
 And cast away the pummace and the draff. 
 
 Too long and much too long 
 He hath endured his wrong. 
 A little vine of life He set to grow 
 Not far off from the footstool of his feet, 
 That it might be in spring a pleasant show 
 Of budding charities, 
 
 In autumn clothe itself with temperate sweet 
 Of love's long-mellowing fruit 
 So mild the angel youth might pluck and eat 
 Xor feel the mortal savor trouble shoot 
 Across their holy ease. 
 But now the vine, 
 
 Grown waste and riotous, has sent its root 
 With monstrous loop and twine 
 In circles nine times nine 
 About the bowels of his holy hill, 
 And million-fold its mouth 
 Has drunk his songful springs and quenched his 
 veins with drouth. 
 
 45
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Twelve shapes of sculptured dream 
 
 On Heaven's twelve gateways gleam, 
 
 Jasper, chalcedony, and jade, 
 
 Beryl and lazuline ; 
 
 And there-amid the rank leaves of the vine 
 
 Earthy and lush 
 
 At morn with laughter push, 
 
 At evening droop and fade. 
 
 Its carnal fruits are insolently laid, 
 
 With stealth and hasty birth, 
 
 Even in God's streets and in his garden bowers, 
 
 And from the topmost glory of his towers 
 
 Singeth and maketh mirth 
 
 The exultation of its sudden flowers. 
 
 Long and too long hath his compassion shrunk 
 
 From laying of the axe unto the trunk ; 
 
 Nor, though the blade is ground, and kindled 
 
 white 
 
 The furnace, will He quite 
 Even now, 
 
 Even now, though day is late, 
 Utterly burn and cast into the slough 
 The thing He made to love and still is loath to 
 
 hate. 
 
 But first He will put off eternity 
 And put on body of their flowering clay, 
 That thus brought near He may familiarly 
 
 46
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Close in each ear the word of pleading say. 
 
 Each blindling heart that stubborns all astray 
 
 Shall hear Him calling closer than the blood 
 
 That both its ruby gates with tumult fills ; 
 
 And to the wild procession of their wills 
 
 Eaving idolatrous in the sacred wood, 
 
 His voice of poignant love 
 
 Though quiet as the voice of dust to dust 
 
 Shall clearly sound above 
 
 The beaten cymbal and the shrewd-blown shell, 
 
 Saying as soft as rain, 
 
 "The gift I gave I fain would have again, 
 
 Ye have not used it well ! 
 
 Break ye the thyrsus and the phallic sign, 
 
 Put off the ivy and the violet, 
 
 A dearer standard shall before you shine 
 
 And for your lustral foreheads ye shall twine 
 
 A fairer garland yet, 
 
 When the processions mild 
 
 Shall greet you and behold you reconciled 
 
 And sing you home across the deathless asphodel. 
 
 But ye who will not so, 
 
 Take up the phallus and the wreathed snake, 
 
 Let the wine flow, 
 
 And let the mountains echo to your yell. 
 
 Your ways lie by the burning of the lake 
 
 Long kindled for your sake : 
 
 47
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Be ye not slow, 
 But go 
 
 Urging your panther teams through the wide 
 woods of Hell ! 
 
 48
 
 ACT II. 
 
 Time: during and immediately after the Crucifixion
 
 ACT II. 
 
 T he outlying plains of Heaven. Storm and darkness. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 But now the air was thick with panic shades 
 Who made no answer when I cried to them 
 Across the vortices of spiritual dark. 
 Upon what stricken plain have I been flung, 
 Whose miscreations blot with leaves like hands 
 The far horizon light 1 Some glow-worm ghost 
 Flees yonder, pauses, turns, and flees again : 
 A woman spirit, by the anguish sweet 
 Wakes in me at her anguish. Sister, hear ! 
 
 The Spirit of the Throne-Lamp. 
 O Light undiinmed, if thou art powerful, 
 Speak to the wind ! For see, my wings are 
 
 torn 
 And shelter not my lamp : 'tis almost spent. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Me too the wind afflicts. Together thus 
 Our wings will shield the flame. Already, see, 
 It climbs and steadies in the crystal bowl, 
 And purges half the terror from thine eyes, 
 
 51
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Thou love-lamp of the Lord ! Are these his 
 
 storms f 
 By his allowance are we thus distraught f 
 
 The Spirit of the Lamp. 
 His throne is empty and Himself is gone. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Child, fright hath crazed thee. Lean thy shak- 
 ing breast 
 On mine : shut out the terrifying dark. 
 
 The Spirit of the Lamp. 
 He died with grieving o'er the world He made. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 We live in Him ; with Him shall all things die. 
 Bright burns thy lamp ; take heart, and tell me 
 
 soon 
 What hath befallen in Heaven. 
 
 The Angel of the Lamp. 
 
 I know not well. 
 My secret lies upon my heart too long. . . . 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Nay, tremble not. Bather look out and see 
 What presence comes : its influence makes cheer ; 
 
 52
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 ? Twill be some spirit glad and resolute. 
 
 Put by thy wings and look ; my eyes are blind 
 
 Watching the feverous pulsings of thy lamp. 
 
 The Angel of the Lamp. 
 
 'Tis he whose tent is pitched within the sun, 
 But hardly glad, no longer resolute. 
 Even Uriel's lordly light the wind subdues. 
 
 Raphael. 
 Hail, Uriel ! 
 
 The Angel of the Lamp. 
 Hail! 
 
 Uriel. 
 Hail, brother ! Sister, hail ! 
 
 Raphael. 
 Close, lend thy breadth of wing! Thou art a 
 
 strength. 
 Speak, if thou knowest what has come to pass. 
 
 Uriel. 
 Something I know, and hither through the 
 
 storms 
 
 That vex the deeps and on disastrous shores 
 Fling all frail stars that coast and merchant 
 
 there, 
 
 53
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 I come to learn the sequel if to learn 
 Be mine, in such a matter. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Speak. 
 
 The Angel of the Lamp. 
 
 Oh, speak ! 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 'Neath pleached boughs and vines of ancient fire 
 In the white centre of the sun I lay, 
 And watched the armies of young seraphim 
 Naked at play on the candescent plains, 
 When suddenly the skies of flaine were rent 
 In sunder, and the plain became a sea 
 Whereon the whirlwind walked through welter- 
 ing lanes 
 
 To the sun's core. With pain I made my way 
 ' Twixt element and angry element. 
 Vast shapes of gathering and dissolving fire 
 That seemed as beast and bird, and awful frames 
 Of shadow, dubious whether bird or beast 
 Or fish or reptile, hidden until now 
 In shifting caverns of the photosphere, 
 Eose up across my path ; and in their eyes 
 Sat fear, and on their limbs astonishment. 
 
 54
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 At last, long battling and bewildered oft, 
 I gained the solar coasts. Wide round I saw 
 Each planet passion-changed, each haggard star 
 Eeeling from flight and swoon, and the great 
 
 deep 
 Toiled like a runner's heart who runs with 
 
 death. 
 
 Calm at confusion's centre stood the Earth, 
 A spiritual nimbus round her brow 
 Like as a woman angel-visited, 
 Sightless and deaf to all things save her swoon 
 And her heart's solemn hallelujah. 
 
 The Spirit of the Lamp. 
 
 Oh, 
 
 What hath He sent upon the joyous Earth? 
 The Earth that has the blue and little flowers 
 Thou brought' st me once to wreath my lamp 
 
 withal, 
 
 Earth-lover ! But they faded very soon, 
 And left a nameless hunger in my heart. 
 Thy Earth was chosen, Eaphael ! Art thou glad I 
 
 Eaphael. 
 
 Not glad nor sorry, sister, since not yet 
 I know the meaning of our brother's words. 
 Earth- wandering, and the shows of restless time, 
 
 55
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Have weighed the eyelids of my spirit down. 
 Speak, Uriel, and speak plain. What followed 
 then? 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 That rapt and solemn aspect of the Earth 
 
 Soon drew me to her through the shuddering air ; 
 
 And circling swiftly round her as she went 
 
 I neared the twilight verge that dipped toward 
 
 night. 
 
 Here on a sunset hill I stayed my wings. 
 Babble of people and much soldiery 
 Poured thence into their city gates ; the place 
 Was steeped in level splendor after storm, 
 And like to pillars of advancing fire 
 Three trees of crucifixion loomed, whereon 
 Three men hung crucified, one beautiful 
 Beyond the measure of Man's flowering clay, 
 Conspicuous o'er the world placed for a sign. 
 Slowly to meet my gaze the dying lids 
 Were lifted, and the faint eyes swam on mine 
 
 Raphael. 
 Nay, sister, sink not ! We are three : be strong. 
 
 The Angel of the Lamp. 
 
 I know whose eyes swam faint on thine ! I know 
 The sorrows that He suffered for his world, 
 
 56
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Ere ever He put off eternity 
 
 And put on clay, to be by hands of clay 
 
 Hung for a sign ! 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Above the pausing wind 
 Hearken ! a rush of pinions. Who are these 
 That put an influence in this bitter air 
 Like Spring when she comes galliard from the 
 south ! 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 The globe of amber light wherein they fly 
 Goes ashen in the flaws. That ship of souls 
 Tacks in the wind's teeth and is blown abroad 
 Nigh Heaven's last confines. Now it veers 
 
 again, 
 And groweth larger : they will pass this way. 
 
 Brother, lift up thy voice and sing to them. 
 These be the spirits that within the moon 
 Wander the lucent forests ; shy are they 
 Amid their wood-thoughts and their shy love- 
 thoughts, 
 
 Only by song their minds are quickly swayed. 
 Wide has the ocean been for their frail wings, 
 And wild the panic that has driven them forth 
 From their still lunar isle. Thy song shall be 
 A kindly net to snare them as they pass, 
 
 57
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Eaphael (sings). 
 
 Shore-birds wet with, deep-sea dew, 
 Fold your wings and stay your flight $ 
 Stay, stay ! 
 Long was the way, 
 
 Grieved with wind is your tender light, 
 Stay, till our love rekindle you. 
 
 Wood-birds that through lunar glens 
 
 Flood the noon of night with singing, 
 
 Hearken, hearken ! 
 
 OUT minds undarken : 
 
 O'er your phosphor forests winging, 
 
 Say, what shadow scared you thence I 
 
 (The moon-spirits alight in a circle round the three 
 angels. ) 
 
 The Spirit of the Lamp. 
 How fair they must have been ere yet their 
 
 light 
 
 Was ruined with the wind and flying spume, 
 Being so fair, though ruined ! 
 
 First Moon- Spirit. 
 
 Who are ye 
 That seem so safe when every shaken world 
 
 58
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Voideth its tenantry, and even those stars 
 That keep the marches and strongholds of space 
 Flee with affrighted eyes down alien deeps, 
 Or cling to the necks of comets, whispering 
 
 words 
 
 That stop them in their courses, though they be 
 Violent souls and outlaw. 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 We are such 
 
 As share God's sorrow in his evil time, 
 And wait the issue of the desperate draught 
 He drinks this hour to win surcease of pain. 
 
 Second Moon-Spirit. 
 
 Speak simply to the simple ; make thy words 
 Accordant to our minds ; our element 
 Is the moon's meek, unintellectual day. 
 
 Uriel. 
 You in the moon have felt His pangs more 
 
 near 
 Than may the passionate dwellers in quick 
 
 worlds 
 Wrapped in their own hot being ; for your 
 
 sphere 
 Has cooled the angry metal in its veins, 
 
 59
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Its spent volcanoes utter now no more 
 Their proud and hasty meanings j age by age 
 Your world tends back to silence, rendering up 
 Its selfhood and control into his hands 
 Whence it rebelled, like all his prodigals, 
 To spend the hoard of fire He dowered them 
 
 with 
 
 Too rashly. So it hangs, a doubtful ground : 
 Now, brooded on by powers of heavenly peace, 
 It goeth darkling and your hearts are dumb, 
 Now, caught within the orbits of desire, 
 It gathers ghostly splendor ; in your woods 
 Old rites are paid, and o'er your crystal peaks, 
 That burn at the heart like genie-haunted 
 
 gems, 
 
 Sweeps revelry so wild that mortal men, 
 Shepherds or sailors, gazing half a night, 
 Wander at dawn brain-crazed. 
 
 Third Moon-Spirit. 
 
 Angel, we wait, 
 
 We wait with trembling till thy lips declare 
 This present hour's disaster. Whose the arm 
 That broke our steppes in twain, and from the 
 
 roots 
 
 Of cloven hills haled shapes of former men 
 And frames of monstrous ravin, ages dead? 
 
 60
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Whose mouth was set against the moon-children, 
 To blow their sheeny pleasances to dust 
 And scare them from their world f 
 
 What plains are these 
 Whose spiritual pulse of light and dark 
 Throbs as if hope and terror struggled there f 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 These are the plains of heaven, least create 
 Of God's creation, nearest to his hand 
 When He would discreate, as now perchance, 
 The deeps that teem with rebel energies 
 Wanton, unteachable, intolerable, 
 Whereof the soul of man, though meant to be 
 His dearest pride and joy, is frowardest 
 And first to vex him : were Man's will subdued, 
 The rest beneath his banners soon would swarm. 
 Long hath He warned and pleaded, but to-day 
 With a most searching bosom- whisper pleads ; 
 For in their likeness clad He gives Himself 
 To die that they may live, accepting Him, 
 Or, still rejecting, and preferring still 
 Their own unto his pleasure, may be cast 
 To outer darkness and the second death. 
 These storms and perturbations are his throes, 
 And here we wait until He reassume 
 His attributes and kingdom. 
 
 61
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 The Angel of the Lamp. 
 
 Will Hq come ! 
 
 And will the ancient peace be ours again ? 
 Speak, brother, will it be ? 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 Hope still is ours. 
 Tremble no more, sweet Flame ! Good hope is 
 
 ours. 
 
 The Angel of the Lamp. 
 
 My secret lies upon my heart too long ! 
 Since first the trumpet told of Time begun, 
 And in the seven bowls the seven flames, 
 So white before and still, a patient praise, 
 Leaped up in restless colours, fear hath stood 
 A whispering eighth among the sisters seven, 
 A thin small voice singing above our songs, 
 A hush beneath our hush. Each side the throne 
 The mystic olive trees began to blow, 
 And on the candlesticks that burn beneath 
 Dropped dying bloom and fruitage mortal ripe. 
 When evening spread upon the holy hill 
 Its excellence of peace, small restless wings, 
 To Heaven unnative, fluttered round our lamps, 
 Forever circling nearer till they threw 
 Into the flame their lives of longing dust, 
 And though we plucked the char out hastily 
 
 62
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 A climbing rust had dulled our torch of praise. 
 Nay, where the very breast of God should be, 
 Forever panoplied with viewless light, 
 Gnawed darkness like a worm, and when this 
 
 wind 
 
 That never came till now, blew wide and thin 
 The splendor of the Throne-stead hush, bend 
 
 close ! 
 His eyes were old with pain. Then all at once 
 
 brothers, is it hours or aeons since I 
 Intolerable lambence lit the air ; 
 
 The sea of glass whereon the nations stand 
 At morn to carol, curdled red as blood, 
 And rolled a moaning billow to the shore ; 
 The Eagle screamed ; upon the tabled gem 
 Where was the footstool of God's feet, lay prone 
 The Lion's whining muzzle ; and the Calf 
 Bleated beneath his six-times-folded wing. 
 My sister lamps were quenched, but ere I fled 
 
 1 crept up past the Lion's awful paws, 
 
 Up past the shrouding light, and saw His place 
 Was empty. ... Is it hours or aeons since ? 
 I found the shadowed fields about me, grey 
 Each hearted amaranth and asphodel, 
 The living forests with their veins of light 
 Looped thickly, and the burning flowers between, 
 The living waters, and the lily souls 
 
 63
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Along the waters all a stricken grey ! 
 Where'er I fled or turned it still pursued 
 That Nothingness that sat upon the Throne ; 
 And now it waits to seize me yonder, here ! 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 Hush, be of better comfort. Through the plain 
 Auroral pallors wake the asphodels ; 
 The wind at last is still ; and eastward far 
 Beyond the friths and islands of that sea 
 Which spreads before His dwelling in the Mount, 
 Behold, beginning glories star the dusk, 
 As if the clouds rolled burning from the throne, 
 To show us signs and wonders risen there. 
 And hark ! the happy presage of keen wings 
 Ingathering from the corners of the winds ; 
 Large light, and silvery calls and far replies, 
 And deeps of song that call unto the deeps. 
 
 Eaphael. 
 
 His agony is done : a little while 
 He tarries, but He surely comes again 
 Even though but for a little. 
 
 The Spirit of the Lamp. 
 
 Let us join 
 These hasting companies whose steady flight 
 
 64
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Goes tempered to all manner instruments 
 Borne in their midst by hidden taborists, 
 Lute-players, and them that pluck the dul- 
 cimer 
 
 All sweet musicians ! Surely these go in 
 Unto some holy matter. 
 
 Raphael, 
 
 Surely. Come ! 
 
 65
 
 ACT III. 
 
 Time : Scene I. before dawn, Scene II. after sunset, 
 of the Day of Judgment
 
 ACT III. SCENE I. 
 
 A peak above the Valley of the Judgment. Be- 
 tween midnight and daum. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Alas, on this lone height my pinions fail, 
 And half my dreaming world unvisited ! 
 As a sick woman, who, when morning glooms 
 Must leave for aye the house where she was 
 
 wed, 
 
 Yearns to behold the thrice-familiar rooms, 
 And rises trembling, and with watch-lamp 
 
 goes 
 
 From chamber unto chamber, stopping now 
 To muse upon her dead child's pictured brow, 
 And now to dream of little merriments 
 Enacted, and of trivial dear events, 
 Until her weakness grows 
 Upon her, and she sinks and cannot rise, 
 So, since upon the sad and prescient skies 
 The darkness of this ultimate night was shed, 
 My feet from haunted place to haunted place 
 Of my familiar earth have kept their pace : 
 Alas, that ere the half be mused upon, 
 And while the coming up of dreadful day 
 
 69
 
 THE MASQUE OP JUDGMENT 
 
 Is still an hour away 
 
 My wing is broken, and my strength is gone ! 
 
 Star after star goes out above the peak, 
 And only from the morning star is shed 
 Keen influence. Great star ! He is not weak, 
 His pinions fail not ; for he never quaffed 
 This frail and fiery air that mortals drink : 
 He has not heard when little children laughed ; 
 He has not watched old pensioners break their 
 
 bread ; 
 
 To woman's lips he never held the draught 
 Of anguish, that a man-child might be born ; 
 The May woods never saw him hiding there 
 His wings and flaming hair 
 To watch the young men pluck the budded 
 
 thorn ; 
 
 Nor has his mouth put off its seraph scorn 
 To hang with startled cry 
 Of grievous inquiry 
 Above the stoic forehead of the dead. 
 
 O heart of man, how I have loved thee ! 
 Hidden in sunlight what sweet hours were mine 
 Of lover-like espial upon thine j 
 Thrilled with thy shadowy fears, half-guessing 
 The hope that lit thy veins like wine, 
 
 70
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Musing why this was bane and that thy blessing, 
 My angel- ichor moved by all that moved thee ; 
 Though oft the meanings of thy joy and woe 
 Were hid, were hard to know ; 
 For deep beneath the clear crystalline waters 
 That feed the hearts of Heaven's sons and daugh- 
 ters, 
 
 The roots of thy life go. 
 O Dreamer ! O Desirer ! Goer down 
 Unto untravelled seas in untried ships ! 
 O crusher of the unimagined grape 
 On unconceivM lips ! 
 O player upon a lordly instrument 
 No man or god hath had in mind to invent ; 
 O cunning how to shape 
 Effulgent Heaven and scoop out bitter Hell 
 From the little shine and saltness of a tear ; 
 Sieger and harrier, 
 
 Beyond the moon, of thine own builded town, 
 Each morning won, each eve impregnable, 
 Each noon evanished sheer ! 
 
 Thou fiery essence in a vase of fire ! 
 
 What quarry gathered and packed down the clay 
 
 To make this delicate vessel of desire f 
 
 Who digged it I In what mortar did he bray f 
 
 Whose wistful hand did lead 
 
 71
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 All round the lyric brede ? 
 
 Who tinted it, and burned the dross away T 
 
 "He, He," (doth some one say?) 
 
 "Whose mallet-arm is lift and knitted hard 
 
 To break it into shard ! " 
 
 Were that the Maker's way t 
 
 Who brings to being aught, 
 
 Love is his skill untaught, 
 
 Love is his ore, his furnace, and his tool ; 
 
 Who makes, destroyeth not, 
 
 But much is dashed in pieces by the fool. 
 
 struggler in the mesh 
 Of spirit and of flesh 
 
 Some subtle hand hath tied to make thee Man, 
 That now is unto thee a wide domain 
 To laugh and love and dare in for a span, 
 And straightway is a prison-house of pain, 
 A den of loathing, and a violent place, 
 A hold for unclean wing and cruel face 
 That mock the seared heart and darkened brain, - 
 My bosom yearns above thee at the end, 
 Thinking of all thy gladness, all thy woe ; 
 Whoever is thy foe, 
 
 1 am thy friend, thy friend I 
 
 As thou hast striven, I strove to comprehend 
 The piteous sundering set betwixt the zenith 
 
 72
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 And nadir of thy fates, 
 
 Whose life doth serious message send 
 
 To moon and stars, anon itself demeaneth 
 
 Below the brute estates. 
 
 Wild heart, that through the steepening arcs art 
 
 whirled 
 
 To a bright master- world, 
 And in a trice must blindly backward hark 
 To the subterrene dark, 
 Deem not that mighty gamut-frame was set 
 For wanton finger-fret I 
 No empty-hearted gymnast of the strings 
 Gave the wild treble wings, 
 Or flung the shuddering bass from hell's last 
 
 parapet. 
 
 Though now the Master sad 
 With vehemence shall break thee, 
 Not lightly did He make thee, 
 That morning when his heart was music-mad : 
 Lovely importings then his looks and gestures 
 
 had. 
 
 Whatever cometh with to-morrow's light, 
 
 Oh, deem not that in idlesse or in spite 
 
 The strong knot of thy fate 
 
 Was woven so implicate, 
 
 Or that a jester put thee in that plight. 
 
 73
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Darkly, but oh, for good, for good, 
 
 The spirit infinite 
 
 "Was throned upon the perishable blood ; 
 
 To moan and to be abject at the neap, 
 
 To ride portentous on the shrieking scud 
 
 Of the aroused flood, 
 
 And halcyon hours to preen and prate in the boon 
 
 Tropical afternoon. 
 
 Not in vain, not in vain, 
 
 The spirit hath its sanguine stain, 
 
 And from its senses five doth peer 
 
 As a fawn from the green windows of a wood ; 
 
 Slave of the panic woodland fear, 
 
 Boon-fellow in the game of blood and lust 
 
 That fills with tragic mirth the woodland year, 
 
 Searched with starry agonies 
 
 Through the breast and through the reins, 
 
 Maddened and led by lone moon- wandering cries. 
 
 Dust unto dust complains, 
 
 Dust laugheth out to dust, 
 
 Sod unto sod moves fellowship, 
 
 And the soul utters, as she must, 
 
 Her meanings with a loose and carnal lip ; 
 
 But deep in her ambiguous eyes 
 
 Forever shine and slip 
 
 Quenchless expectancies, 
 
 74
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 And in a far-off day she seems to put her trust. 
 
 O Morning Star ! that dost arise 
 Haughtily now from off thy flaming throne. 
 And standest in thy wings' outspreaded zone, 
 With hand uplift and intense vision glad, 
 More kindling while thy brother planets fade, 
 Wilt thou, the seldom-speaker, speak and say 
 If this, if this be then the far-off day 
 When God shall give the substance for the shade ? 
 When Man shall wake, and be no more adrad 
 To lose the precious dream he dreamed he had, 
 And the long groping of his heart be stayed ? 
 
 He answers not ; the globed light he wears 
 Largens and largens like a wondrous flower, 
 And in the midst his wavering radiance fades. 
 Behold, upon the waters, them that be 
 Above the heavens, how the lily light 
 Blooms mystical and vast ! till all the stars 
 And all the gathered clouds that wait the day 
 Are blotted by its rondure. Dimly grows 
 From height to depth of that magnificence 
 A splendor sad that taketh feature on. ... 
 Lo ! where God's body hangs upon the cross, 
 Drooping from out yon skiey Golgotha 
 Above the wills and passions of the world ! 
 
 75
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 O doomed, rejected world, awake ! awake ! 
 
 See where He droopeth white and pitiful ! 
 
 Behold, his drooping brow is pitiful ! 
 
 Cry unto Him for pity. Climb, oh, haste, 
 
 Climb swiftly up yon skiey Golgotha 
 
 To where his feet are wounded ! Even now 
 
 He must have pity on his childish ones ; 
 
 He knoweth, He remembereth they are dust ! 
 
 Earth slumbers ; and the freshening winds begin 
 
 To blow from out the unuprisen east ; 
 
 Yet still abides that awful Eidolon 
 
 Large on the face of Heaven, and its light 
 
 Is as the patience of a thousand moons 
 
 Upon the peaks and gorges of the vale. 
 
 Now on that giant forehead slowly dawns 
 
 Again the star, the bright, the morning star ; 
 
 Amid the changeful lampings of his orb 
 
 The Angel stands, with keen out-spreaded wings, 
 
 And lifted hand and intense vision glad, 
 
 As when he led his brother orbs in song. 
 
 But yet no word nor any breath of song 
 
 Begins upon the region silences : 
 
 All's hushed as ere the first-created throat 
 
 Was vocal. 
 
 Now remoter wonders wake, 
 Impatient glories gather and transpeer 
 
 76
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 That sky-suspended Image. Three by three 
 
 The beryl gates, the gates of chrysoprase, 
 
 And those that are a very perfect pearl 
 
 Open, and all the citadel of God 
 
 Even to the bright acropolis thereof, 
 
 The temple of the ark of the covenant, 
 
 Lies open, steeped in wroth light from the 
 
 Throne ; 
 And all the heavenly folk are busy there. 
 
 77
 
 ACT III. SCENE II. 
 A peak above the Valley of the Judgment. Twilight. 
 
 MicJiael. 
 God's vengeance is full wrought, unless this 
 
 form 
 
 That labors from the dark mists of the Vale 
 Be one whose strength has overlived our wrath, 
 And the last hunger of whose heart shall be 
 To creep from out that mass of death, and wait 
 High on these ruined hills for death to come 
 At nightfall, when the last strong soul must 
 
 die. 
 
 Nay, 'tis no mortal creature, though he wears 
 A fallen unhappy splendor, and his wings, 
 All eyed and irised like the gladdest ones 
 That glimmer in the pageantry of Heaven, 
 Are folded sadly o'er his downcast eyes 
 As now he sits and dreams. 'Tis Eaphael. 
 
 (Michael descends. ) 
 
 Why sitteth Eaphael disconsolate 
 After the manifest glories of this day 1 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 The rest may keep the glory. 
 78
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Michael. 
 
 Wilt thou share 
 
 The love-feast of the saved in Heaven to-night 
 With hidden traitorous thoughts clouding thy 
 heart? 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Never again ! Never again for me ! 
 
 Never again the lily souls that live 
 
 Along the margent of the streams, shall grow 
 
 More candid at my coming. Never more 
 
 God's birds above the bearers of the Ark 
 
 Shall make a wood of implicated wings, 
 
 Swept by the wind of slow ecstatic song. 
 
 Thy youths shall hold their summer cenacles ; 
 
 I am not of their fellowship, it seems. 
 
 God's ancient peace shall feed them, as it feeds 
 
 These yet uplifted hills. I would I knew 
 
 Where bubbled that insistent spring. To drink 
 
 Deep, and forget what I have seen to-day ! 
 
 Michael. 
 
 What thou hast seen? The splendor of his 
 
 power 
 
 Sent forth against the wicked j his right arm 
 Cleaving unbearable glories, lifted high 
 To hurl his chivalry down slopes of flame 
 
 79
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 With wheels and tramplings ; the wide thresh- 
 ing-floor 
 
 Become a furnace ; drop by anguished drop 
 The oozing of the wine-press of his wrath ; 
 The gross pulp cumbering the floor of the world, 
 The little priceless liquor chaliced up, 
 Borne back 'mid plaining silver and sweet throats 
 For the Spirit's earliest house-gift to the Bride ! 
 Thou would' st forget this gladly, Eaphael? 
 
 Raphael. 
 Yes, yes j right gladly. 
 
 Michael. 
 
 Yonder where the fight 
 Flung its main sea of blood and broken souls 
 Into the nether dark, I saw a youth 
 Cling for a moment to a jutting rock 
 And gaze back at the angel shapes that rode 
 The neck of the avalanche ; between the wings 
 Of the pale horse and the red his vision pierced, 
 Between the ranks of spectral charioteers, 
 Supernal arms and banners prone for speed, 
 Up to the central menace of the Hand 
 That launched that bulk of ruin ; and I saw 
 A light of mighty pleasure fill his eyes 
 At all that harness and despatch of war 
 
 80
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Storming aslope. He laughed defiance back 
 
 Ere down cascades of blood and fire was flung 
 
 His body indistinguishably damned. 
 
 How should this puny valor rise in glee 
 
 To greet the power that crushed it, and thy heart, 
 
 Angelically dowered, stand listless by ? 
 
 RapMel. 
 
 Perhaps for thinking on another sight. 
 After thy chivalry passed down and left 
 The valley-trough cumbered and heaped with 
 
 death, 
 
 A broken girl o'er-lived to find the breast 
 Her arms had clung to in the awful fall 
 Strange, alien, not her lover's boyish shape 
 She deemed she held, but gross with years and 
 
 sins. 
 
 Her changed eyes heavily a moment roamed, 
 Then settled back on his, the darkened mate 
 Whom chance had flung her at the hour extreme 
 In scornful bridals. From his brow she drew 
 The war-worn locks, and laid her kisses there 
 Unutterable with life's Extreme tenderness. 
 
 Hark ! where the last of those redeemed go by, 
 Companioned of the hasting paranymphs 
 Who hear afar the Spirit and the Bride 
 
 81
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Say "Come," and see the nuptial torch alight 
 Ere they have put their saffron vesture on, 
 Too eager for their goal to join the song 
 Those throats redeemed raise, save that their 
 
 hearts 
 
 Throb rhythmic with it, systole dim 
 And bright diastole, with wax and wane 
 Of spirit-splendor pulsing to the tune. 
 
 Redeemed Spirits (sing, as they fly past below). 
 
 In the wilds of life astray, 
 Held far from our delight, 
 Following the cloud by day 
 And the fire by night, 
 Came we a desert way. 
 O Lord, with apples feed us, 
 With flagons stay ! 
 By Thy still waters lead us ! 
 
 As bird torn from the breast 
 Of mother-cherishings, 
 Far from the swaying nest 
 Dies for the mother wings, 
 So did the birth-hour wrest 
 From Thy sweet will and word 
 Our souls distressed. 
 Open Thy breast, thou Bird ! 
 
 82
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Another neareth, chill upon the wind ; 
 "Wan fire-flakes stain the clustering spires of cliff, 
 From ledge to shoulder hapless echo clings 
 And falters up. 
 
 Michael. 
 
 The pale one's homing-song ! 
 To-day he makes good harvest, and his voice 
 Has autumn meanings ; jealously and late 
 His steed foregoes the trampled threshing-stead. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Terrible angel ! Never until now 
 Have I beheld his features through the veil 
 Of pallor that enwrapped them ; now at last 
 Their terror is distinct, for triumph now 
 And large appeasement lights them visibly, 
 As o'er his horse's neck he strains for speed. 
 
 Michael. 
 One flieth with him, rosy-lit within. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Not as the battailous breathing of thy mates 
 Enrubies them : more vesperine and sad. 
 ' Twill be the lordly light of Uriel, dimmed. 
 Hail, Uriel ! Quench thy speed. 
 
 83
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 The Angel of the Pale Horse (flying). 
 
 Why tarry now ? 
 God's acts are throughly complished : Heaven 
 
 stays 
 Till all her sons be gathered. 
 
 (Flies past.} 
 
 Uriel (alighting). 
 
 Here I wait 
 To see the swift reprisals Man shall take. 
 
 Michael. 
 
 Blaspheme not, lest I hurl thee down to swell 
 The carrion sin that Eaphael mourns above ! 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Uriel's place is there, by those pale heads, 
 Those sightless eyes with awful question changed, 
 Those desperate broken hands cheated in death 
 With poor embraces chance and alien. 
 Not Uriel's only, mine, and thine, and theirs 
 Thy warrior mates, and chiefly His whose breast 
 Bathed in some dawn's bright urge and wistful- 
 ness 
 
 Put out this lovely fruitage, this sweet vine 
 Of man the leaf and maid the honeyed flower 
 In mystic alternation, and when noon 
 Spread clamor in the pulses of the vine, 
 
 84
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Was pined and plucked it up ! Not so shall one 
 Deal with another's, much less with his own. 
 
 Michael. 
 
 For sins not to be borne he cut them off. 
 Murders, adulteries, and acts unclean, 
 Idolatries, and broken covenants, 
 Violent hearts and unconsidering tongues. 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 The violence and the unclean acts were his ; 
 Unto Himself himself brake covenant ; 
 Before the monstrous fancies of his heart 
 His heart made heathen mummery and song. 
 Wherefore to-day himself He punishes. 
 
 Michael. 
 
 Thy mouth uttereth darkness. Is all dream ? 
 Human and heavenly deed unmeaning both f 
 
 Raphael (to Uriel). 
 
 Brother, thou art all wisdom, as I know 
 And still have proved rejoicingly, but now 
 Thy word indeed is difficult and dark. 
 Take not away Man's ancient dignity, 
 The privilege and power to elect his ways, 
 His kingly self-possession. Level not 
 
 85
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 The head that lies too low to-day. Snatch not 
 From brows abased the crown of personal will 
 Which made them noble, though it brought 
 
 them down, 
 
 Being worn too carelessly, too like a wreath 
 Of ivy or poppies meant for holiday. 
 Man's agonies and ecstasies obscure 
 "Were more than shadow- show ! Not all in vain 
 His groping toward some quaint imagined good, 
 His blood shed for a scruple, his low days 
 Winged and illumined with long-suffering love ! 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 Nay, not in vain were these, though otherwise 
 Bound with the sum of things than unto Man 
 Seemed likely, wearing that glad wreath he wore, 
 And going after good the headstrong way. 
 
 Raphael. 
 We wait to hear this riddling talk made plain. 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 Truth is not soon made plain, nor in a breath 
 Fluently solved while the chance listener waits, 
 Nor by the elemental wrestling mind 
 Wrung from the rock with sobs. Myself have 
 held, 
 
 86
 
 Where in the sun's core light and thought are 
 
 one, 
 JEons of question, and am darkling still. 
 
 Raphael. 
 Speak, brother, though thy words be hard and 
 
 scant. 
 The candle flame goes far a moonless night. 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 The worlds and all their tenantry are Him, 
 Even to the utmost archipelagoes 
 Gazed at by maritime angels ere they veer 
 Homeward, awestruck by omens and sea-signs 
 Known to no pilot of them, and far-off 
 Watch the scared islanders beside the straits, 
 All these, and whatso lies beyond our hail, 
 Are effluence of the life that moves in Him, 
 Thought of his brain, wish of his working 
 
 blood : 
 
 Yet every separate creature of his thought 
 Hath separate claims and separate potencies. 
 Oh, not a sparrow falleth to the ground 
 But He regardeth it ! Since ere it fell 
 A little gladness died away in Him. 
 And not a creature sinneth but He weeps 
 His own sin with his creature's fourfold pain, 
 
 87
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Since god and creature, false each to itself, 
 Was false each to the other. Not a heart 
 O'ercometh evil and mounts up to good, 
 But He o'ercometh and is lifted too. 
 Each life of clay that flowered in fragrant deed, 
 Each grass-blade that grew willingly, each bird 
 That through the churlish weather hoarded song, 
 Not only worked its own salvation out 
 But helped Him in his old struggle with him- 
 self 
 
 Or might have helped or might have helped, 
 it seems. . . . 
 
 Raphael. 
 Yet did not, thy disconsolate ending says. 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 Who shall dispute finalities with Him f 
 Not Uriel. But as far as Uriel sees, 
 Salvation lies annulled in yonder Vale 
 And prone are God's true helpers. 
 
 Michael. 
 
 Clay of clay ! 
 
 Wassailers, fleshlings, quarrel-mongers, thieves 
 Of pleasure, plighters of unholy troth, 
 Mimes, gypsies, idol-breakers, idol-smiths, 
 Dervishing fantasists most likely help ! 
 
 88
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 Unlikely : yet the marrow of his bones ; 
 
 Heat of the breath of his mouth ; corpuscles red 
 
 Energic in his veins, loud gainsayers 
 
 Of death's insinuating whisper, "Peace ! " . . . 
 
 Before the Heavens were spread, or He himself 
 
 Eose from his changeless and unpictured dream, 
 
 These stirred in Him, demanding to be dowered 
 
 With individual shape and destiny, 
 
 Each one a soul, yet each incorporate 
 
 With his great soul, which to far happy ends 
 
 Should henceforth in a million shapes of will 
 
 Immensely groan and travail, not with tears 
 
 Alone, but laughter, with singing as with sobs. 
 
 Oh, many a golden station on that march 
 
 Lie backward of us ! when the armed worlds 
 
 Broke leaguer round some conquered capital, 
 
 And in the pleasure-places of its kings 
 
 Sat down to feast, the unhelmed gleemen 
 
 chanting 
 
 Victory past and victory to come. 
 Let me not darken thought with imagery ! 
 Still the naked word escapes me, being too vast, 
 Too simple, for our little pictured speech. 
 This chiefly I would say : the restless joy 
 Which called God from his sleep and bade his 
 
 hand 
 
 89
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Depict much life and language on the dark, 
 
 Had other aims and meanings than are writ 
 
 In yonder Valley for an epilogue. 
 
 Man's violence was earnest of his strength, 
 
 His sin a heady overflow, dynamic 
 
 Unto all lovely uses, to be curbed 
 
 And sweetened, never broken with the rod ! 
 
 Raphael. 
 Why did He quench their passion! I have 
 
 walked 
 The rings of planets where strange- coloured 
 
 moons 
 
 Hung thick as dew, in ocean orchards feared 
 The glaucous tremble of the living boughs 
 Whose fruit hath eyes and purpose ; but no- 
 where 
 
 Found any law but this : Passion is power, 
 And, kindly tempered, saves. All things declare 
 Struggle hath deeper peace than sleep can bring : 
 The restlessness that put creation forth 
 Impure and violent, held holier calm 
 Than that Nirvana whence it wakened Him. 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 This day declares He deemeth otherwise. 
 The Shining Wrestler, tired of strife, hath slain 
 
 90
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 The dark antagonist whose enmity 
 Gave Him rejoicing sinews ; but of Him 
 His foe was flesh of flesh and bone of bone j 
 With suicidal hand He smote him down : 
 Soon we shall feel His lethal pangs begin. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Fiercer than those that clove thy burning realms 
 And sent grey winds to waste the plains of 
 
 Heaven 
 
 When on the Cross He sought to purchase peace 
 And lure his wayward world back to His hand ! 
 
 Michael. 
 His lightning dry thy tongue ! Why should our 
 
 minds 
 
 Peer and conjecture of the danger past 1 
 Thou knowest what glory followed. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 A \5jj A JVllUW* 
 
 The clouds at last rolled burning from the Throne 
 And let us see the risen wonders there. 
 Again I hear the gathering psalmody 
 Chant out the clement tale eternal God 
 Made clay, by hands of clay unto the Cross 
 Hung for a sign, that who beholding Him 
 Should find Him very God, might dwell with us 
 
 91
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 In endless light and life. Again I hear 
 The deep consenting chorus monnt and merge 
 The wayward crests of treble into one ; 
 But still between the calling deeps of song 
 Vagne and unacquiescent hung my heart, 
 Conning the burden wistfully anew 
 In hopes to find the joy my comrades found 
 Hid in the dubious notes. Vague hung my heart, 
 Wistful as morning boughs that watch the moon, 
 Not strong as now when I have seen all clear 
 And o'er the ashes of the world declare 
 Listen ! Are there not voices in the Vale ! 
 
 Michael. 
 They talk together. Some die not till dark. 
 
 Raphael. 
 Aye, until dark ! 'Twill be a starless night. 
 
 92
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 Time : evening of the Day of Judgment
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 A rock in the Valley of the Judgment ; about the 
 rock, and filling the whole trough of the valley, lie 
 the bodies of the lost. Twilight. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 My lot is cast with these : I watch to-night 
 Here islanded in death. Say me not nay : 
 Till from the last lip anguish is unwreathed, 
 From the last brow the frown of horror fades, 
 Here I must sit, witness and comforter 
 If any more conspicuous strengths survive 
 To mutter or make signal in the dusk. 
 
 Michael. 
 Nay, brother, stay not. Though thy words are 
 
 calm, 
 
 Thy desperate eyes betray thee ; thou resolvest 
 Some sudden irremediable thing. 
 The past is done, and, whether well or ill, 
 Necessitously. Put on that robe of song 
 Woven of youngest light and over-runed 
 With flickerings of the golden elder speech, 
 Wherein thou led'st the lily souls along 
 Choregic o'er the unclouded psalmody 
 And wert so starry long agone ! Arise ! 
 
 95
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 My soul is heavy at thee. Thou art wan ; 
 Thine eyes are dull yet wild, even as these 
 "Who lie involved and heaped along the Vale 
 Seeming in death to threaten and to rave. 
 Arise and come away ! Why tarry here 
 To mourn above these outcast, since the fan 
 Hath winnowed them and left no righteous one ? 
 Bather arise, make glad thy countenance, 
 And through the courts of day let herald throats 
 Softly declare thy coming, virgin hands, 
 From that oraculous tree whose leaves are 
 
 tongues, 
 
 Laurel thee best of Heaven's lutanists 
 And seat thee at the minstrel-hand of God. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 You urge me well. I think my songs to-night 
 Would cheer their festivals : I have a theme 
 Of very present gladness, deeply conned. 
 But if amid the gratulating chant, 
 If through the dances orbed and interorbed 
 Furnished with solemn symbol and device, 
 Perchance there stole a quite unfurnished shape 
 Nakedly risen from this company 1 
 Holding up horrible accusing hands 
 Against the nuptial light? That were scarce 
 well. 
 
 96
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 I fear my lute would glance and jangle off 
 To themes as good unsung. Hark ! 
 
 Michael, 
 
 Twas a voice, 
 
 Not distant. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Nay, 'tis yonder, he, who lies 
 Half -lifted from the jetsam of this sea 
 Across that ragged reef. Another, hush ! 
 A woman's voice, was't not? And see, below 
 That aged throat would fain articulate. . . . 
 They taste sweet speech ere the long silence 
 
 comes. 
 
 A Youth's Voice. 
 
 Do any live but me ! Do any wake to hear 
 A word spoke in the dark before I die f 
 
 An Old Man. 
 An old and wakeful spirit rests thee near. 
 
 A Young Woman. 
 Long had I lain asleep, but wakened at thy cry. 
 
 Youth. 
 
 Not all discourteous is the Conqueror's heart, 
 Since now of that good strength I wore at noon 
 Ebbs back a little part. 
 
 97
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 Enough to syllable thy soul's young scorn, 
 Though all unripe, unwise ; 
 And haply rouse some one of these that lie 
 Fixing the dark with undivining eyes 
 Of human wit and seemliness forlorn, 
 To speak their separate word or unto thine reply. 
 
 Youth. 
 
 A song of scorn I minded to have sung, 
 But all the words are faded from my tongue. 
 Mysteriously withdrawn, 
 Out of this desolation I am gone 
 Aloft into the light of other days. 
 My heart runs naked in the wind, more fleet 
 Than are my flying feet, 
 
 Above the misty foss and up the mountain lawn 
 To seek the place of Morning where she stays. 
 The silver summits held across the dawn 
 By some gigantic arm, like wrought candelabras, 
 Kindle their wicks of praise 
 To light the temple builded not with hands 
 Above the prostrate lands, 
 And the religious winds, song-stoled, 
 Pacing the mighty nave 
 Fill azure dome and star-held architrave 
 With hymns unto the gods that grow not old, 
 
 98
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Lords of tlie joy of life made known 
 
 Not unto gods alone, 
 
 But perfectly to man and beast and stone, 
 
 And by the atomies with rapture shared, 
 
 But ne'er by poet's golden mouth 
 
 Nor by the west wind singing to the south 
 
 Fitly declared. 
 
 Oh, for a voice 
 
 Here in the doors of death 
 
 To speak the praise of life, existence mere, 
 
 The simple come and go of natural breath, 
 
 And habitation of the body's house with its five 
 
 windows clear ! 
 
 O souls defeated, broken, and undone, 
 Eejoice with me, rejoice 
 That we have walked beneath the moon and 
 
 sun 
 
 Not churlishly, nor slanderous of the bliss ; 
 But rather leaving this 
 To the many prophets strict and sedulous 
 Of that sad-spoken god 
 
 Who now hath conquered and is surely king, 
 Have given our lips for life to closely kiss, 
 Have heard the sweet persuasion of the sod 
 And been heart- credulous 
 To trust the signs and whispers of the spring. 
 
 99
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Second Youth. 
 
 Various the reasons why we could not pay 
 The price exacted from us ! 
 My ear, though fain, I might have turned away 
 From spring's love-startled promise, 
 I might have given up the glorious sea 
 And the majestic mountains might for me 
 Have ceased to be ; 
 
 God, with one sudden rinsing of his hand, 
 Might have wiped bare 
 The earth-ball of its deeds and pageantries, 
 Tea, even of light and air, 
 That on the stark circumference I might stand 
 And choose deliberately, unvexed of these, 
 Between my will and his. 
 Then I had said, with cheerful voice and 
 
 strong, 
 
 Somewhat dismayed, yet with a cheerful voice, 
 "This many days, Lord, I have thought it 
 
 long 
 
 Till I could put away creation's noise, 
 The tragic streets, the poignant drip of rains, 
 But chiefly the loud speaking in my veins 
 Concerning this and that desirable. 
 Now you have put me in a quiet place, 
 Take but away your too expectant face, 
 And all shall then be well. 
 
 100
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Then I can ponder, as I meant to do 
 
 And as I singly long since thought was mine, 
 
 The mysteries divine ; 
 
 Make quiet proof of you 
 
 If you be verily my lord or no, 
 
 And, having found you to be truly so, 
 
 Shall understand for sooth, 
 
 That down the eternities I may launch my 
 
 mind 
 
 Not as a tame hawk haggard down the wind, 
 "Whom huntsman's cry pursueth, 
 But as an eagle without bell or jess, 
 Obedient alone to his soul's lordliness. 
 
 Third Youth. 
 
 Better with captives in the slaver's pen 
 Hear women sob, and sit with cursing men, 
 Yea, better here among these writhen lips, 
 Than pluck out from the blood its old compan- 
 ionships. 
 
 If God had set me for one hour alone, 
 Apart from clash of sword 
 And trumpet-pealed word, 
 I think I should have fled unto his throne. 
 But always ere the dayspring took the sky, 
 Somewhere the silver trumpets were aery, 
 Sweet, high, oh, high and sweet ! 
 
 101
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 What voice could summon so but the soul's 
 
 Paraclete ? 
 Whom should such voices call but me, to dare 
 
 and die ? 
 
 O ye asleep here in the eyrie town, 
 Ye mothers, babes, and maids, and aged men, 
 The plain is full of foemen ! Turn again 
 Sleep sound, or waken half 
 Only to hear our happy bugles laugh 
 Lovely defiance down, 
 As through the steep 
 G rey streets we sweep, 
 Each horse and man a ribbed fan to scatter all 
 
 that chaif ! 
 
 How from the lance-shock and the griding 
 
 sword 
 
 Untwine the still small accents of the Lord ? 
 How hear the Prince of Peace and Lord of 
 
 Hosts 
 Speak from the zenith 'mid his marshalled 
 
 ghosts, 
 
 "Vengeance is mine, I will repay ; 
 Cease thou and come away ! " 
 Or having seen and harkened, how refrain 
 From crying, heart and brain, 
 "So, Lord, Thou sayest it, Thine 
 
 102
 
 But also mine, ah surely also mine ! 
 
 Else why and for what good 
 
 This strength of arm my father got for me 
 
 By perfect chastity, 
 
 This glorious anger poured into my blood 
 
 Out of my mother's depths of ardency f 
 
 A Confuted Voice. 
 Not very long to-day 
 
 Thy arm held back the mischief of the tide ! 
 Thou could' st not check the play 
 Of scythes, the awful chariots beside ! 
 Thy blood has ebbed a little from its pride. 
 
 A Girl's Voice. 
 
 I waited patiently and thought to hear 
 The secret reason dark, 
 The secret reason dark and dear 
 Why none of us had heart to mark 
 The pale evangel whispering from the sphere. 
 For oft the moon between the garden boughs 
 Her looks of summer longing would efface, 
 And come to be a halo round the brows 
 Of Him who died to give the sinner grace, 
 Now saddening o'er His purchase from that 
 
 place. 
 And oft at dawn I heard the Sons of Morning 
 
 103
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Silvered with lovely menace fill the sky, 
 And heard their solemn lips deliver warning 
 What time the central singer lifted high, 
 In the deep hush twixt ode and palinode, 
 The sangrael of the sun, brimmed with redeem- 
 ing blood. 
 
 But how might I attend the minatory 
 Voices of many angels breathing doom, 
 When from the window of the little room 
 My love's face had not faded, and the story 
 His wakeful mouth had whispered in the gloom 
 Spake in my pulses yet ? And how at evening 
 
 turn 
 
 To feel those sad eyes down the moonlight yearn, 
 When mouth to mouth and breast to aching 
 
 breast 
 
 I held my lover close, and by his nest 
 The nightingale, scarce master of his mood, 
 Now after faint essay 
 And amorous dim delay 
 
 Suddenly steeped his heart in song's mad pleni- 
 tude? 
 
 A Woman's Voice. 
 
 What unripe girl is this who maketh bold 
 To speak for lovers at the extreme hour, 
 Yet fancy-paints the flower ? 
 Yet hides with image-gilt the naked gold I 
 
 104
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 sisters, brothers, help me to arise ! 
 
 Of God's two-horned throne I will lay hold 
 And let Him see my eyes ; 
 That He may understand what love can be, 
 And raise his curse, and set his children free. 
 
 Another Woman's Voice. 
 My life was a rank venomed weed 
 And hers, I think, a flower ; 
 But my harsh voice shall have a power 
 Fiercer than hers to plead. 
 About His knees with curses I will cling, 
 My veins I will break open, till He see 
 The barb of the intolerable sting, 
 The tongues of the immitigable fire 
 He planted there to fret and fumble through me, 
 To craze and to undo me, 
 Till on the cruel altars where He threw me 
 
 1 slew my heart's desire ! 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 Of double fetters be not fain, my child, 
 To these thou wearest be thou reconciled. 
 Spread not before his dark averted gaze 
 (Now that He holds his hand and seemeth satis- 
 fied) 
 The love that called you unappointed ways 
 
 105
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 And filled your hearts with pride. 
 
 A little while He left you free 
 
 In passion's privilege 
 
 To god it on the peaks of personality, 
 
 But ye have walked too near the hither edge. 
 
 Yet once I thought 
 
 My old heart meekened to an evening mood 
 
 By dint of years and much beatitude 
 
 He was not jealous as the prophet taught, 
 
 Nor loving-tolerant as mild teachers held, 
 
 But swayed to mystical participation 
 
 Of various delight 
 
 By every chrysalid's meandering flight 
 
 And million-footed onset of heroic nation ; 
 
 To instant joy impelled 
 
 By every jet of life that from Time's fountain 
 
 quelled. 
 
 So deemed I, musing on the headstrong glee 
 Of children at my knee, 
 But He ordained his ways after another fashion. 
 
 Fourth Youth. 
 
 'Twas not the lover nor the warrior stirred 
 His jealous arm to smite, 
 Nor he who longed to launch forth as a bird 
 In far and lonely flight 
 
 106
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 To seek the truth of things, nor he who heard 
 
 The choral winds in Nature's temple chaunting. 
 
 All these He could endure, 
 
 Since his creation and its furniture 
 
 They merely used, nor vexed his ears with 
 
 vaunting 
 
 Themselves creators too 
 And fashioners of worlds, and pilots of them 
 
 flaunting 
 
 Beside his in the blue. 
 But some there were infatuate, audacious, 
 To whom the world's vast girth 
 Seemed niggard and unspacious ; 
 Who, having clambered or been borne on wings 
 Above the realms of sense 
 From off God's secret altars ravished thence 
 The plastic fire of his imaginings 
 And brought it down to earth. 
 
 Then, pale with supernatural intention, 
 
 We builders of the over- world arose, 
 
 And softly to their houses of ascension, 
 
 Orbing as soft as April buds unclose, 
 
 But bowelled of the furious lava-stream, 
 
 Star after ordered star went up the heavens of 
 
 dream : 
 Each from the other ever differing, 
 
 107
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Glory from glory, 
 
 And each a world summed and replete 
 With all the human heart forebodeth well 
 Or hoardeth to repeat 
 Of tragical and sweet 
 In earthly summer and the mortal spring 
 And man's peculiar story, 
 Yet by the mind made an immortal thing, 
 Patiently purged and weaned of its corrupti- 
 ble. 
 
 Oh, how should Man into the dust be trod, 
 Who is himself a god ? 
 How should the lord of each enchanted isle 
 For gazing on a brother-god's high sacrificial 
 
 sorrow 
 
 Say himself low and vile, 
 Or for that Sufferer's sake 
 Teen to his own undarkened being borrow, 
 And in a gloom of abnegation break 
 The wand wherewith he summoned from their 
 
 sleep 
 
 The whirlwinds of the everlasting deep, 
 And souls of men and spirits of lost hours 
 And spring's sequestered firstlings, the sky 
 
 flowers, 
 Bound to his golden powers ? 
 
 108
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Michael. 
 
 I wait no longer on their stammering tongues ! 
 Once more I pray thee rise and come away. 
 The Valley darkens fast, and Heaven stays 
 Thy single voice to make its concord full. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 These voices we have hearkened lack as well, 
 To make such concord as I care to hear. 
 
 Michael. 
 Then curse thee for a stubborn heart ! Nay, 
 
 nay, 
 I will not curse thee whom I love. . . . Take 
 
 heed 
 
 Lest any wing patrolling in the dark, 
 Mistaking thee for one of these, should smite. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Already from the deeps approacheth one, 
 Staining the limbs and faces of the dead 
 With amber as he flies. What clime has blown 
 Azaziel's radiance to so blear a tinct ? 
 
 Azaziel (flying past). 
 Woe ! Woe ! unto the dweUers in this Vale. 
 Woe unto them who wait the second death ! 
 Prepare to meet the Worm that dieth not ! 
 
 109
 
 Raphael. 
 Azaziel, hear ! "What meaneth . . . ? 
 
 Michael. 
 
 He is past, 
 
 Bearing his message further. How it sobs 
 And falters on the wind ! 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 In the deeps begins 
 A myriad lamentation. . . . 
 
 Michael. 
 
 .Nearer now, 
 
 And mixed with keener individual cry. . . . 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 The sea of death sways moaning and recoils, 
 Bristling with serried surf of forms uplift, 
 Postures of supplication and despair, 
 Forlorn attitudes ! 
 
 Michael. 
 
 From the starless sky 
 
 A star shoots screaming, hushes in mid- flight, 
 And stands at gaze above the vasty caves, 
 The cafions and the aged wells of dark 
 Toward which this valley plunges. 
 
 110
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Far below 
 
 Disastrous splendor glares above the abyss, 
 And in the midst a bulk of sinuous shade 
 That lifts and swings a snaky head aloft 
 Surveying where to strike. . . . 
 
 Michael. 
 
 Away ! Away ! 
 
 Even now his pendulous neck doth sweep the 
 
 Vale 
 
 From wall to wall, incredibly advanced 
 Leagues hither, though his lewder folds are still 
 Hid backward in the abyss. Away ! Away ! 
 From yonder peak we may behold all safe : 
 To linger here even spirits dare not. 
 
 Raphael. _, 
 
 vrO 5 
 
 I tarry. Let me take thy mighty sword. 
 A minstrel's hand can swing a blade at need. 
 
 Michael. 
 
 Not so. Forgive me this my violence ! 
 Thy soul is all distraught and desperate, 
 And I must save thee in thine own despite. 
 
 (He overpowers Raphael, and bears him aloft just 
 as the enormous swinging head of the Serpent 
 blots out the scene. ) 
 
 111
 
 ACT V. 
 
 Time : as in Act IV.
 
 ACT V. SCENE I. 
 
 An exposed upland : one side looJcs down into the 
 
 Valley of the Judgment, on the others the snow-peaks 
 
 fade into the visionary cliffs and slopes crowned by 
 
 the battlements of Heaven. Sunset glow still lingers 
 
 on the heights : the moon is rising. 
 
 Raphael (awaking). 
 Where are we, brother ? I remember naught. 
 
 Michael. 
 Safe lifted o'er the Vale, and none too soon. 
 
 Raphael. 
 Help me to rise. 
 
 Michael. 
 
 Nay, rest thee yet a while. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Something of portent passes in the Vale 
 I cannot well recall, but know 'tis so 
 By thy wild looking. Can thy vision pierce 
 So downward through the mists t Mine eyes are 
 
 weak 
 And blink at the mild moon. 
 
 115
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Michael. 
 
 Spare thou to look. 
 
 Even me it grieveth, thee it will destroy 
 With present heart-break. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 O remembrance now 
 Creeps moaning through the sea-halls of my 
 
 mind, 
 A sluggish neap, with loss and wreckage strewn ! 
 
 Michael. 
 
 The Serpent enters now that last defile 
 High lifted toward the spiritual hills. 
 Behind him as he came has silence fallen 
 And gesture ceased : final ineloquence. 
 These hither people are the lesser thewed 
 But more inspirited, who held the fight 
 Vanward against us, and who fell the first 
 Before the whirlwind of our going down. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Is it too late to save this remnant few 
 For seed of a new world, planted afar 
 Beyond this trouble? Come, thy might and 
 
 mine ! 
 He lifts a questioning head and seems to stand 
 
 116
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Hesitant at the mouth of the defile : 
 There give him battle. . . . 
 
 Michael. 
 
 Nay. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Then I alone. 
 Michael. 
 
 Too late 5 and even if sooner, much too late ! 
 He brings the second death ; his fangs have 
 
 power, 
 
 'Tis whispered, on the flaming seraphim 
 To tarnish or to quench ; one venom fleck 
 Flung from his jaws, how might it lame and 
 
 scar 
 Our substance archangelical. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Yes, yes, 
 
 You give me reasons to it. Lovelier 
 
 Such scars upon the breast, though mortal proven, 
 
 Than that fair sigil set upon thy brow 
 
 The morn of thy first victory. "Why live, 
 
 Why live, when all these wills that searched the 
 
 earth 
 
 Until they found their one and inward love, 
 Refusing to be still have ceased to search, 
 Though quite unsatisfied f To feel the night 
 
 117
 
 Unvexed of longing, and the day purged blank 
 Of laughter and of sorrow and of brawl ; 
 No pride of life to glory in the sun, 
 No ecstasy to mate the moon's increase, 
 No heart interpreting the twilight thrush 
 All the heart's business done ! Nay, not for 
 
 me ! 
 
 Mine ear hath lain too long on Nature's pulse, 
 I cannot miss that music. Let me go. 
 
 Michael (still detaining him). 
 Govern thy heart and tongue. Nature, thou 
 
 knowest, 
 
 Was but a bye-thought of the Eternal Mind, 
 A whim extravagant, repented of, 
 And now in its chief element of Man 
 Annihilate and put away, save those 
 Who rendered up their wills to His, and share 
 This night with Him the immortal quietudes. 
 
 Lo, where the Serpent enters ! Quick and dead 
 Loosen their maimed embraces. From beneath 
 Heaves the incumbent carnage. In the clefts 
 And on the headlands scattered souls arise 
 Expectant or imploring . . . Now he reigns 
 Instant among them, and their say ings- nay 
 Decrease and come to nothing. 
 
 118
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 All is done : 
 
 The great refusal made. The wayward heats 
 That might have moved God's blood to sweetest 
 
 ends 
 
 In dreams and deed, have bled themselves away, 
 And peace is his, though profitless. 
 
 Michael. 
 
 Hush ! Look ! 
 
 The Worm goes on ! 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 What say'st thou ? Speak ! 
 Mine eyes are still too dim, I see not well 
 What passes 'neath the drifting fogs. 
 
 Michael. He mounts , 
 
 He lays his length upward the visioned hills, 
 
 The inviolable fundaments of Heaven ! 
 
 There where he climbs the kindled slopes grow 
 
 pale, 
 
 Ashen the amethystine dells, and dim 
 The starry reaches. . . . Now he coils his bulk 
 About a foreland, and the nacrous light 
 It beetled with turns cinder. High he piles 
 His folds, and seems to note the upward way. 
 Hark, the trump sings to battle ! I am called. 
 
 (He flies upward toward the walls of Heaven.) 
 119
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Raphael (alone). 
 
 O darkest creature of God's shaping thought, 
 Shamefullest born, in that unsacred hour 
 When, pining for the pools of ancient sloth, 
 His soul repenteth Him that he had made 
 Man, and had put that passion out to use ! 
 Clearest thou inward now to find the heart 
 That bore thee shuddering and hath fostered 
 
 thee 
 
 With secret sweat of agonizing brows ? 
 Has this day's great defection armed thy fang 
 And lit thy wrath to seek Him where He sits 
 Sickening amid his harsh-established peace ? 
 
 On which side then shall Eaphael be found, 
 The sociable spirit, very friend of man 
 And Nature's old-time lover ? Surely there 
 At God's right hand, with a loud song for sword 
 To beat the Spectre back when armies fail, 
 And cheer Him as the shepherd Israel's king. 
 
 (Re flies after Michael.} 
 
 120
 
 ACT V. SCENE II. 
 
 Raphael stands on a promontory of tlie cloudy 
 slope up which the Serpent has passed. The Valley 
 of the Judgment lies far below. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 A mortal weariness beats down my wing ; 
 I cannot farther. Here I must remain, 
 Whether I will or no a truant still, 
 While battle rages round the heart of God, 
 A recreant on the very slopes where first 
 With wistful feet from Heaven adventuring 
 I sought those little flowers of shyest light 
 Whose earthly hue and palpitance would speak 
 A wild distress of sweetness, till my blood 
 Sang wander-songs, and pictured to itself 
 The happy outland chances of the spring. 
 I think none grow now in the muted dells 
 Nor on the chidden reaches ; yet perhaps 
 If I should search as earnestly as once. . . . 
 
 My mind strays like a fevered child's to-night 
 And plays with leaves and straws, regarding not 
 How fate comes on next instant ! . . . Not alone, 
 Not all cornpanionless must I abide 
 Its coming, love be praised who sends me love 
 
 121
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 And comradeship now at my dearest need ! 
 For hither through the wintry windelstrae 
 Flee, veer, and flee a fluttered company 
 With hands outstretched and groping. Woman- 
 kind, 
 
 By the lorn influence that companions them 
 And hangs grief in the wind. ... A taper's 
 
 flame 
 Streams backward o'er each trembling hand. 
 
 'Twill be 
 
 The seven dear sister spirits ancillary 
 Who tend their lamps of laud before the Throne. 
 
 Stay, sisters, stay ! They swerve aside and flee 
 More terror-stricken still. I prithee stay ; 
 'Tis Eaphael calls ! 
 
 First Lamp. 
 
 O then art thou too fled ? 
 Haste, let us flee together ! We had thought 
 All but the timid spirits still abode 
 The battle's outcome. Timid thou art not, 
 Though woman-gentle ; is the battle lost ? 
 Or won t Oh, surely won, since thou art here. 
 
 Eaphael. 
 
 I come from earthward. Mortal weariness 
 122
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Beat down my wing, and I was forced to stay. 
 How goes the struggle f 
 
 First Lamp. 
 
 In and in it stormed 
 
 From ring to lessening ring, until we fled, 
 I and the sister Lamps, save only one, 
 Our meekest and most patient flame of praise, 
 Whom naught could make afraid. Now by the 
 
 wind 
 Distract, we wander on these withered hills. 
 
 Second Lamp. 
 How withered from the day thou brought' st us 
 
 hence 
 
 Flowers for our lampads ! tiny troublous things 
 That living pierced us with a faint unrest 
 And dying left a nameless woe behind. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Call up each sweetness over- lived, for soon 
 Sweet shall be sweet no more, nor sad be sad. 
 Momently yonder Heaven's heart of light 
 Throbs feebler, and the dark gains on the day. 
 
 Now where he runs afar, the sun hath felt 
 Sharp pangs delay his feet, for swiftly hither 
 
 123
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 In the distressful beaming of the moon 
 Comes on the wasted light of Uriel. 
 
 Uriel (approaching). 
 
 The dream is done ! Petal by petal falls 
 The coronal of creatured bloom God wove 
 To deck his brows at dawn. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 No hope remains ? 
 Uriel. 
 
 To save Him from himself not cherubim 
 Nor seraphim avail. Who loves not life 
 Eeceiveth not life's gifts at any hand. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 And life He loved not, though it sprang from 
 Him! 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 He loved it not entirely, good and ill. 
 
 Raphael. 
 For what end should we love an evil thing f 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 Better than I thou knowest, truant soul ! 
 Who all the summer hours didst love to stoop 
 O'er insect feuds, herb- whisperings, and watch 
 
 124
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 The prurient-fingered sap startle the trees 
 To sudden laughter of bloom. Better than I 
 Thou knowest what lewd rebellion stings the core 
 Of nature, bidding every seed awake 
 To sacramental life after its kind ; 
 Better than I thou kuowest what cruelties 
 Eage round about each starry heroism, 
 Out of what murky stuff the lover builds 
 His soul's white habitation. 'Tis not mine 
 To lesson thee how height and depth are bound 
 So straitly that when evil dies, as soon 
 Good languishes, nor how the flesh and soul 
 Quicken with striving, and when strife is done 
 Decline from what they were. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 "Would He had dared 
 
 To nerve each member of his mighty frame 
 Man, beast, and tree, and all the shapes of will 
 That dream their darling ends in clod and star 
 To everlasting conflict, wringing peace 
 From struggle, and from struggle peace again, 
 Higher and sweeter and more passionate 
 With every danger passed ! "Would He had 
 
 spared 
 
 That dark Antagonist whose enmity 
 Gave Him rejoicing sinews, for of Him 
 
 125
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 His foe was flesh of flesh and bone of bone, 
 With suicidal hand He smote him down, 
 And now indeed His lethal pangs begin. 
 
 First Lamp (to Uriel). 
 Brother, what lies beyond this trouble f Death 1 
 
 Uriel. 
 All live in Him, with Him shall all things die. 
 
 Second Lamp. 
 And the snake reign, coiled on the holy hill ? 
 
 Uriel. 
 Sorrow dies with the heart it feeds upon. 
 
 Raphael. 
 
 Look, where the red volcano of the fight 
 Hath burst, and down the violated hills 
 Pours ruin and repulse, a thousand streams 
 Choked with the pomp and furniture of Heaven. 
 In vain the Lion ramps against the tide, 
 In vain from slope to slope the giant Wraths 
 Bally but to be broken. Dwindling dim 
 Across the blackened pampas of the wind 
 The routed Horses flee with hoof and wing, 
 Till their trine light is one, and now is quenched. 
 
 126
 
 THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Uriel. 
 
 The spirits fugitive from Heaven's brink 
 Put off their substance of ethereal fire 
 And mourn phantasmal on the phantom alps. 
 
 Fourth Lamp. 
 
 Mourn, sisters ! For our light is fading too. 
 Thou of the topaz heart, thou of the jade, 
 And thou sweet trembling opal ye are grown 
 Grey things, and aged as God's sorrowing eyes. 
 
 First Lamp. 
 My wick burns blue and dim. 
 
 Second Lamp. 
 
 My oil is spent. 
 Raphael. 
 
 The moon smoulders ; and naked from their seats 
 The stars arise with lifted hands, and wait. 
 
 127
 
 UCSB LIBRARY
 
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