Commoving thee no less
With that forced quietness

Than the earthquake in thy centre-
Thou hast not learnt to bear
This new divine despair!

These tears that sink into thee,
These dying eyes that view thee,
This dropping blood from lifted
rood,

They darken and undo thee!

Thou canst not, presently, sustain this corse !

Cry, cry, thou hast not force !
Cry, thou wouldst fainer keep
Thy hopeless charnels deep,
Thyself a general tomb-

Where the first and the second Death
Sit gazing face to face

And mar each other's breath,

While silent bones through all the place 'Neath sun and moon do faintly glisten, And seem to lie and listen

For the tramp of the coming Doom.
Is it not meet

That they who erst the Eden fruit did eat,
Should champ the ashes?

That they who wrapt them in the thundercloud,

Should wear it as a shroud,
Perishing by its flashes?

That they who vexed the lion, should be rent?

Cry, cry-'I will sustain my punishment,

The sin being mine! but take away from

me

This visioned Dread-this Man-this Deity.'

The Earth. I have groaned-I have travailed-I am weary.

I am blind with mine own grief, and cannot see,

As clear-eyed angels can, His agony, And what I see I also can sustain, Because His power protects me from His pain.

To lay down peace and power as will

ingly?

Ador. He looked for some to pity.
There is none.

All pity is within Him, and not for Him.
His earth is iron under Him, and o'er Him
His skies are brass.

His seraphs cry 'Alas'
With hallelujah voice that cannot weep.
And man, for whom the dreadful work is
done-

Scornful voices from the Earth. Ifverily
this be the Eternal's son-
Ador. Thou hearest !-man is grateful!
Zerah.
Can I hear,

Nor darken into man and cease for ever
My seraph-smile to wear?
Was it for such,

It pleased Him to overleap His glory with His love and sever From the God-light and the throne And all angels bowing down,

For whom His every look did touch New notes of joy on the unworn string

Of an eternal worshipping?

For such, He left His heaven?
There, though never bought by
blood

And tears, we gave Him gratitude!
We loved Him there, though unfor-
given !
Ador.

The light is riven Above, around,

dreary,

Hearkening the thick sobs of my child

ren's heart.

How can I say 'Depart'

To that Atoner making calm and free? Am I a God as He,

Ador. Is it to death? He dieth. Zerah. Through the dark He still, He only, is discernibleThenaked hands and feet transfixèdstark, The countenance of patient anguish white, Do make themselves a light

round them dwell,

And therein do they shine.

Ador.

God! Father-God!

Perpetual Radiance on the radiant

throne !

Uplift the lids of inward Deity,
Flashing abroad

Thy burning Infinite !

Light up this dark, where there is nought

to see

Except the unimagined agony
Upon the sinless forehead of the Son.
Zerah. God, tarry not! Behold, enow
Hath He wandered as a stranger,
Sorrowed as a victim. Thou

Appear for Him, O Father!
Appear for Him, Avenger!
Appear for Him, just One and holy One,
For He is holy and just!

At once the darkness and dishonour rather

To the ragged jaws of hungry chaos rake,
And hurl aback to ancient dust
These mortals that make blasphemies
With their made breath! this earth and
skies

That only grow a little dim,
Seeing their curse on Him!
But Him, of all forsaken,
Of creature and of brother,
Never wilt thou forsake!

Thy living and Thy loving cannot slacken Their firm essential hold upon each other

And well Thou dost remember how His part

Was still to lie upon Thy breast and be
Partaker of the light that dwelt in Thee
Ere sun or seraph shone ;
And how while silence trembled round
the throne,

Thou countedst by the beatings of His heart

The moments of Thine own eternity!
Awaken,

O right Hand with the lightnings !
Again gather

His glory to thy glory! What estranger,
What ill supreme in evil, can be thrust
Between the faithful Father and the Son?

Appear for Him, O Father!
Appear for Him, Avenger !

For He is holy and just.

Ador. Thy face, upturned toward the throne, is dark

Thou hast no answer, Zerah.

Zerah.

O unforsaking Father?— Ador.

No reply,

Hark!

Instead of downward voice, a cry

Is uttered from beneath.

Zerah. And by a sharper sound than death

Mine immortality is riven.

The heavy darkness which doth tent the sky

Floats backward as by a sudden wind-
But I see no light behind!
But I feel the farthest stars are all
Stricken and shaken,

And I know a shadow sad and broad
Doth fall-doth fall

On our vacant thrones in heaven.
Voice from the Cross. MY GOD, MY GOD,
WHY HAST THOU ME FORSAKEN?

The Earth. Ah me, ah me, ah me! the
dreadful why!

My sin is on Thee, sinless One! Thou art God-orphaned, for my burden on Thy head.

Dark sin, white innocence, endurance dread!

Be still, within your shrouds, my buried dead

Nor work with this quick horror round mine heart!

Zerah. He hath forsaken Him. I perish

Ador.
Upon His name! we perish not.
His will-

Hold Of old

Zerah. Iseek His will. Seek, seraphim! My God, my God! where is it? Doth that curse

Reverberate spare us, seraph or universe?
He hath forsaken Him.
Ador. He cannot fail.
Angel Voices. We faint, we droop-
Our love doth tremble like fear.
Voices of Fallen Angels from the earth.
Do we prevail ?

Or are we lost?-Hath not the ill we did
Been heretofore our good?
Is it not ill that One, all sinless, should

Adam dead four thousand years, Unwakened by the universe's Everlasting moan,

Ador. Hear the wailing winds that be
By wings of unclean spirits made!
They, in that last look, surveyed
The love they lost in losing heaven,
And passionately flee,—
With a desolate cry that cleaves
The natural storms-though they are
lifting

God's strong cedar-roots like leaves,
And the earthquake and the thunder,
Neither keeping either under,
Roar and hurtle through the glooms!—
And a few pale stars are drifting
Past the Dark, to disappear,
What time, from the splitting tombs,
Gleamingly the Dead arise,
Viewing with their death-calmed eyes
The elemental strategies,

To witness, Victory is the Lord's. Hear the wail o' the spirits! hear. Zerah. I hear alone the memory of His words.

At his old sepulchral stone, 'Adam, Adam, all this curse is Thine and on us yet! '— Unwakened by the ceaseless tears Wherewith they made his cerement wet,

-nor

Of demons sweeping past it to their prison. The skies, that turned to darkness with Thy pain,

Make now a summer's day;

main?'

Records how CHRIST IS RISEN.

III

And I-ah! what am I

counterfeit, with faculty earthdarkened,

Seraphic brows of light,