Come with us, and behold far higher sight

Than e'er thy heart desired, or hope conceived. See, yonder is the glorious hill of God,

'Bove angel's gaze in brightness rising high. Come, join our wing, and we will guide thy flight To mysteries of everlasting bliss ;—

The tree, and fount of life, the eternal throne,
And presence-chamber of the King of kings.
But what concern hangs on thy countenance,
Unwont within this place? perhaps thou deem'st
Thyself unworthy to be brought before

The always Ancient One? so are we too
Unworthy; but our God is all in all,

And gives us boldness to approach his throne.

Sons of the highest! citizens of heaven! Began the new arrived, right have ye judged: Unworthy, most unworthy is your servant, To stand in presence of the King, or hold Most distant and most humble place in this

Abode of excellent glory unrevealed.
But God Almighty be for ever praised,
Who, of his fulness, fills me with all grace,
And ornament, to make me in his sight
Well pleasing, and accepted in his court.
But if your leisure waits, short narrative
Will tell, why strange concern thus overhangs
My face, ill seeming here; and haply too,
Your elder knowledge can instruct my youth,
Of what seems dark and doubtful unexplained.

Our leisure waits thee; speak-and what we can, Delighted most to give delight, we will; Though much of mystery yet to us remain.

Virtue-I need not tell, when proved, and full Matured-inclines us up to God, and heaven, By law of sweet compulsion strong, and sure; As gravitation to the larger orb

The less attracts, thro' matter's whole domain.

Virtue in me was ripe-I speak not this
In boast, for what I am to God I owe,

Entirely owe, and of myself am nought.

Equipped, and bent for heaven, I left yon world,
My native seat, which scarce your eye can reach,
Rolling around her central sun, far out,

On utmost verge of light: but first to see
What lay beyond the visible creation

Strong curiosity my flight impelled.

Long was my way and strange. I passed the bounds

Which God doth set to light and life and love; Where darkness meets with day, where order

meets

Disorder dreadful, waste and wild; and down
The dark, eternal, uncreated night

Ventured alone. Long, long on rapid wing,
I sailed through empty, nameless regions vast,
Where utter Nothing dwells, unformed and void.
There neither eye, nor ear, nor any sense

Of being most acute, finds object; there For ought external still you search in vain. Try touch, or sight, or smell; try what you will, You strangely find nought but yourself alone. But why should I in words attempt to tell What that is like which is-and yet-is not? This past, my path descending still me led O'er unclaimed continents of desert gloom Immense, where gravitation shifting turns The other way; and to some dread, unknown, Infernal centre downward weighs: and now, Far travelled from the edge of darkness, far As from that glorious mount of God to light's Remotest limb-dire sights I saw, dire sounds I heard; and suddenly before my eye A wall of fiery adamant sprung up— Wall mountainous, tremendous, flaming high Above all flight of hope. I paused, and looked; And saw, where'er I looked upon that mound, Sad figures traced in fire-not motionless

But imitating life. One I remarked
Attentively; but how shall I describe

hath seen

What nought resembles else my eye
Of worm or serpent kind it something looked,
But monstrous, with a thousand snaky heads,
Eyed each with double orbs of glaring wrath ;
And with as many tails, that twisted out
In horrid revolution, tipped with stings;

?

And all its mouths, that wide and darkly gaped, And breathed most poisonous breath, had each a sting,

Forked, and long, and venomous, and sharp;
And in its writhings infinite, it grasped

Malignantly what seemed a heart, swollen, black,
And quivering with torture most intense;
And still the heart, with anguish throbbing high,
Made effort to escape, but could not; for
Howe'er it turned, and oft it vainly turned,

These complicated foldings held it fast.

And still the monstrous beast with sting of head