Elias: An Epic of the Ages

CANTO FOUR

Night And The Wilderness[1]

A World o'ershadowed by an Eagle's wings[2],From Scythian snows to hot Hamitic sands,From Ganges on to Tiber and the Thames. 690Where goeth forth, unwittingly the toolOf Truth Eterne, a pathway to prepare,The law and legion of imperial Rome,Mighty to crush and to consolidate,Humbling the hard, the haughty, making wayFor peace to flow[3] wider than war can woundServant unknowingly of Him she slew,In pandering to Judah's jealousy.Victim now Victor, conqueror captive led,Debtor to justice, darkness serving day, 700Upon her knotted neck Jehovah's heel,Her iron hand the Nazarene's defense,Holding in quell the hierarchal hate,Curbing the cruel wrath of Greek and Jew;Israel from Israel's madness made secure—Lamb from the Lion, by the She-Wolf's might[4].Ere rose the Iron-Limbed[5], all conquering,Throned on the wreck of empires earlier born,Wrought well for Him the brazen loin of power,The pard-like phalanx, swift, invincible, 710Spreading the glories of a sapient tongue,The wing whereon a higher wisdom flew,Till teemed, of Aryan clans, the Asian kin[6],Seedlings of Japheth, sire of the Gentile world.Soul-widening word, broad-sown by Grecia's hand,To blossom on a furrowed heathen ground.Servant, erstwhile, the silver-breasted realm,Kingdom of Kurush[7], shepherd of the King,Whose sword, that gave the Jew deliverance,To golden Babylon the guillotine. 720Whoe'er hath swayed, or yet shall sway, the world,By tongue or pen, by sword or sceptered rule,Hath served, or yet shall serve, the sovereign aimOf Him who wills the welfare of mankind;For or against, promoting still His plan,Helping, not hindering, a conquering Cause.Gone the great Sun—set but to rise again,More glorious from a night of martyrdom;Set here to rise on realms and times untold;All worlds, God's lofty vineyards[8], visiting. 730Linger the spirit Moon and speaking Stars[9],Crowning with light the Woman Wonderful[10].Fair as the morn, though tearful as the eve;Risen as from the rocky sepulchre,Where slept betimes the body of her Lord;Clothed, crowned, and shod, with glory's symboling[11];Ere winging to the vast invisible,Returning to the restful wilderness,She bides to hope, to labor, and endure,All depths, all heights, with Him inheriting. 740Henceforth with her another Comforter,Vicegerent[12] of the vanished Majesty,Of heavenly Three, the unembodied One[13],Proceeding from the presence of the Sire,To manifest the meaning of the Son;Giver of gifts from Him, the glory-crowned,Fountain of memory and of prophecy.After and ere,[14] Messiah's Minister,Creative hand, omnific arm of God;Holder with Christ of resurrection's key, 750The quickener of the living and the dead.Lamp of the worlds, life of the universe,Eternal spring of energy divine—Life, Light, and Love, magnetic mystery,Whereby all things upheld and heavenward drawn.Prophet still pleading[15] in the wilderness,The promise of a perfect yet to come;Proclaimer of the heavenly commonweal,Kingdom upon and yet not of the earth,Whose portal none can enter, none can see, 760Save born anew—born of a dual birth,By mystic fatherhood and motherhoodBegotten sons and daughters unto God,Whose Spirit, omnipresent, immanent,Unwearied, strives by countless ministries,By might of word, by miracle of deed,Mankind to win, wooing while hope remains.Henceforth with her that holy gift and guide,Truth's high revealer and interpreter;Henceforth with her the Father and the Son, 770Absent, yet present by the Comforter;Of great lights twain, the lesser, ruling night,Moon to that Sun, whose realm the rounded Day.Resplendent night, while flame those fluent stars[16],That still a spotless brow bediadem;Circling forever round their central Light,And, Him withdrawn, repeating from afar,And gladdening with His rays a gloom-hung world.As set that Sun, sinking in seas of blood,Sinking to soar above a mightier morrow, 780Follow the lingering stars, save haply one[17],Through mystic night of ages sparkling lone,And speaking in high splendor things to come.Most lustrous of the living lamps of God,'Mid human lights, divinely luminant.Rarest of twelve, remaining oracle,Reserved unto a wondrous destiny;Pilot of peoples, nations, tribes and tongues,Leading the lost[18] ones from captivity.Beloved of Love—life's King, death's Conqueror, 790Tarrying by will of Him through troubled time,Lighting the way unto eternity.And thou, e'en thou, O Woman Wonderful!Safe for a season from the She-Wolf's maw,Far borne, east, west, on power's imperial wings,Nourished 'neath Caesar's shield, till Caesar's swordHath turned upon and made thee desolate.Thou too must pass—not perish—in thy time.Betrayed to foes without, by false within,E'en as thy Lord thou sufferest martyrdom. 800But what avails to baffle Him or bind?Vain, dragon, vain thy deluge of deceit,Thy flood of lies, thou false one from of old!Vain, wrath of devils and of men combined,Bent to defile the sacred Bride of Christ.Triumphs the Man-Child[19], heaven now summons home;Triumphs the Woman in the wilderness,'Scaping the jaws, the hungering gates of hell,That 'gainst the mortal part alone prevail;Body, not spirit, crushed and all o'ercome. 810Throned upon higher worlds, she reigneth still;And here shall rise unto the regnant place,When rolls the stone upon the image doomed,When God hath fanned with fire His threshing floor.Till then proud Japheth sways[20], while Jacob mourns,Fainting 'neath yokes and fardels, prostrate, prone,With Judah undermost, the last of allThe trampled tribes to taste of liberty.Haply ordained a lesser power to wield,Antaeus-like[21], from touching of the ground; 820Bent, curst, yet clutching, and by might of goldConquering his dust-adoring conqueror[22].For God, through all, remembers Abraham,Ordained of old His lineal house to be.Came not the Christ their covenant to fulfill?Who but an Israel might offer Him?Whose hand than Judah's might Jehovah slay?"His blood be on our head"—Ay, rests it there!Weightier than worlds by that high death redeemed.World-wandering Saul! Was this thy symboling: 830The Jew struck blind that Gentile hosts might see[23]?Predestined Israel, martyred, immolate[24],That nations, blood-besprent, might look and live;A burden-bearer for the universe,Outcast and homeless for humanity,Descending like his Lord all else below,And yet with Him to rise all else above,Extremes of woe and weal encompassing,Wisdom by sweet and bitter made more wise.From blight springs blessing, and from darkness day; 840E'en Canaan's neck from 'neath the yoke[25] shall come.Japheth shall feel the Spirit minister,And Jacob see and hear his risen Lord[26].Departed now the Woman Wonderful,Gone with the spirit gift and guiding power;O'ercome, world-conquered, sinks degenerateThe washed one to his wallowing in the mire[27];A drowsy dreamer of the self-same dreamsDispelled erewhile by lightnings of her eye;The heaven-lit torch[28] that made the pathway plain 850O'er rugged mount, through mazy catacomb,Now dimmed with incense from Diana's shrine[29],And dashed in pieces 'gainst a pagan throne,Where prematurely changed was cross for crown,And Christ's flock fleeced by shearing compromise[30].God still with man, though not with man's misrule;Still with the just, though Christian-pagan turnHis prurient ear to fables, from the truth,And, virtueless as Judah's pharisee,And graceless as Iscariot, self-hung, 860Parts in the midst, as wide as East from West[31],False church and faithless empire, faction-torn,Twain as the imaged legs of Babel's dream,A split colossus, fallen 'twixt Greece and Rome.God still with man, though not with man's misrule,Never with thee, daughter of force and fraud,Mother of guile—thy refuge and thy shame!Never with thee, thou wanton by the way,Roaming tradition's tangled wilderness,Lost in a night that seemeth to thee day; 870In crooked paths that fain would straight appear;Warming thy withered fingers o'er the coalsAlive 'mid ashes of the ancient fires,Where She was wont[32] to kindle faith, hope, love,And flash the beacon o'er a wandering world.There holding to thy heart an empty urn,There cherishing a name, a memory,Mumbling vain prayers, "Lord, Lord," protesting still,And still forgetful of thy Lord's command!Nay, not with thee, thou crimson courtesan[33], 880Robed in the horrid hue of countless crimes!Fierce dragon's maw, thrice-cruel murderess,Thy hands a-reek with blood of innocence,With blood of prophets, blood of priests and kings,Whose martyred souls sue vengeance, judgment-sworn!Vengeance on thee, thou slaughterer of saints,Vengeance on him, thy sceptered paramour,Whose princes ten (while Mammon's host shall wail),Loathing where once they loved all lustfully,And lived, as thou hast lived, deliciously, 890When found no more God's wheat 'mid Satan's tares,When thou art saltless, saintless, savorless,When thou art ripened unto rottenness,Shall give thy crumbling body to be burned.Nay, Anti-Christ, presuming tyranny,Never with thee, usurping power of sin!Plotting to sway Jehovah's sovereignty,To rear thy throne where His alone shall stand;Perdition, warring 'gainst the Saints of God,And overcoming till the Judgment sits[34], 900When swift-winged morn shall overtake the night,And glory lift the gloom[35] of centuries.Meanwhile the mission of the Moonlike One[36],Brooding above the waters of the world,Stronger than storms, mightier than wind or wave,Moving on mortal seas, on human souls;Dynamic impulse of Divinity,Impelling to all action[37] wise, sublime.That high Ambassador of Elohim,The Spirit Messenger Omnipotent, 910Declare His goings-forth, His sendings tell.Ye patriarchs and prophets of old time!Ye seers and bards of sacred Israel!Elect of God, earth-wandering witnesses,Sowers on goodly and on stony ground!Souls mercy-sent, man's erring steps to winFrom folly's paths of wickedness and strife,To wisdom's way of purity and peace!Shepherds to fold and feed a wolf-torn flock,Holding the hallowed keys that loose and bind! 920Tell me—are ye alone truth's harbingers?Are ye alone forerunners of the Light?Nay, for as kings and conquerors they come;Anon, as champions of democracy;Founders of faiths and stern iconoclasts;Sword, tongue and pen of progress and reform.The fountain lights of literature, whose raysSpill their white splendor on the hills of fame;Masters of melody, whose strains awakeThe slumbering memories of eternity; 930Pilgrims to continents and climes unknown,Uncurtained for the play of liberty,Now nearing the finale of her dreams,Dreams that shall waken to reality;Waste-winners; probers of the polar way;Invention's wizards, wielding magic might—Launching fleet words on atmospheric wave,Cleaving with bird-like wing the shoreless blue,Outspeeding speed, outblazing brilliancy,Thrilling the world with lightning's vivid wand, 940Ruling all realms with scintillating sway;Sages in art, in science past profound,Subduing matter and exploring mind,Sounding the depths of psychic mystery,Scaling thought's pinnacles, that pierce the night,To greet the early glintings of the morn.These also are the mighty, kin to those,Divinest of Jehovah's messengers.Each hath his freedom, and succeeds or fails,But all subserve the Will Omnipotent. 950What though some wayward son of Deity[38],Builder, o'erthrower, of imperial thrones,In wrongful act of rightful agency,Here drench with blood, here pave with shattered bones,To heights of crumbling power and futile fame!Is God then mocked? Made void His vast design?Creator foiled by creature? Vain the fear!Speeds ne'er to earth a spoiler of His plan,Nor spares His rod a recreant messenger.Whate'er betide, the soul that sins atones: 960The grievous sceptre and the slaughtering sword,The bloodstained ax, the gory guillotine,The tyrant wrong, the tyrant-trampling right,Join to make justice of the direst doom.All oracles of light, all arms of power,Preparers of the way one face before;Their strength but part of His omnipotence,Their fault God-given lest man be deified,And pride in him dethrone humility.Declare His truth, His generations tell, 970O'er whom the many marveled, some to sayElias, slain of Herod, lives again;While some said Jeremias[39]. Who say ye,Man-hated, though God-missioned ministers,Unctioned with fire, anointed from on High!Guardians yet watchful o'er the widening fold!Who say ye was your Master, Teacher, Friend?"Word that was God, is God, and shall be aye;Sire by the spirit, and by flesh the Son;In glory with the Father ere the world, 980And now with that same glory glorified.Image and likeness of creation's cause,Mirror and model of humanity[40],Of man the parent and the prototype.Lover of light, hating and righting wrong;Anointed Lord of Lords and Sire 'mid Sons;The Sole-begotten, He that doeth hereAll He hath seen erstwhile the Father do.Elias? Nay, Messiah, Saviour, King,That Greater whom Elias said would come." 990Sufficeth it. What now, ye learned ones,School-taught, self-sent, man-missioned ministers,Creators of a vain divinity!Daring the thunders of the decalogue,Disputing Moses, Christ, and prophets all,Gird up your loins and answer—What of God?"God?—Mystery incomprehensible[41];All things made He from nothing"—Hold, enough!Night and gross darkness—darken it no more.Yet give to man his meed. Hath he not kept, 1000Albeit in empty urn, the Name of Names,And toiled and suffered sore transmitting itFrom sire to son through shaded centuries?Messiah's coming did he not proclaim?And, trodden yet beneath oppression's heel,Hoards he not still the precious prophecy?The Jew, the Christian, each hath played his part,Each as a star[42] hath heralded a morn.And what of him, the fierce iconoclast,Agnostic, doubting or denying all, 1010Ofttimes in hate and horrid ribaldry?Maintains he not life's equilibrium,A tempering shadow to the torrid beam,A brake upon the wheel of bigotry,A jet to cool fanaticism's flame,Unquelled, devouring, devastating all?An angel, past control, a demon were.Bold unbelief, reform's rough pioneer,Unwittingly a warrior for the Cross,A weapon for the right[43] he ridicules. 1020God's perfect plan an ocean is, where rangeAs minnows, monsters, of the wide wave-realm,Men's causes, creeds, and systems manifold;Free as the will of Him who freedom willed,Within the bounds ordained by law divine.E'en Lucifer, arch-foe to liberty,Is free, though fettered to his fallen sphere;Enticing, tempting all, compelling none,And aiding aye the Power he fain would foil.All human schemes, all hell's conspiracies, 1030All chance, all accident, all agency,All loves, hates, hopes, despairs, and blasphemies,All rights, all wrongs, to one high purpose bend.No backward glance gives progress. Upward! on!Life triumphs ever in death's victory.Dross hath its ministry no less than gold;And honest, erring zeal, wherever found,Hath wrought more good than ill to humankind.But morn must rise, and night dismiss her stars;And ocean summon home his seas and streams; 1040And truth the perfect, truth the part fulfill,As knowledge faith, as history prophecy.Day from his quiver drew a shining shaft,And 'thwart the night the flaming arrow flew.Hark, to a cry that cleaves the wilderness,Pealing the clarion prelude to the dawn!

CANTO FIVE

The Messenger of Morn[1]

"Wake, slumbering world! Vain dreamer, dream no more!The shadows lift, and o'er night's dusky beachRipple the white waves of morn. Awake! Arise!"Ocean of dispensations—rivers, rills, 1050Roll to your source! End, to thine origin!And Israel, to the rock whence ye were hewn[2]!For He that scattered, gathereth His flock,His ancient flock, and plants their pilgrim feetOn Joseph's mountain top and Judah's plains;Recalls the children of the covenantFrom long dispersion o'er the Gentile world,Mingling their spirits with the mystic sea,Which sent them forth as freshening showers to saveThe parched and withered wastes of unbelief[3]. 1060Japheth! thy planet pales[4], it sinks, it sets;Henceforth 't is Jacob's star must rise and reign."Daughter of Zion! be thou comforted,And wash from thy wan cheek all trace of tears.Gone are the days of dole and widowhood,The days of barrenness that brought thee scorn;Thy wilderness now weds, thy desert blooms."Rejoice, Jerusalem! thou art redeemed;Again thy temple and thy towers arise;Heard is the harp of David in thy halls; 1070Greater than Solomon's thy wisdom shines."From spirit heights, where thou art beautiful,Lamp of the nations, send thy light afar!Take on thy new name—One and Pure in Heart!For thou shalt see thy God, His presence thine."Time, mighty daughter of Eternity!Mother of centuries[5]—seventy, seven-crowned!Assemble now thy children at thy side,And 'ere thou diest teach them to be one[6].Link to its link rebind the broken chain 1080Of dispensations, glories, keys, and powers,From Adam's fall unto Messiah's reign;A thousand years of rest, a day with God,While Shiloh reigns[7] and Kolob once revolves."Six days thou, Earth, hast labored[8], and the seventh,Thy sabbath, comes apace! Night's sceptre wanes,And in the East the silvery MessengerGives silent token of the golden Dawn."Once more the ancient tidings[9] among men!Once more the sign and seal of heavenly power! 1090Renewal of an endless covenant,Elias, restitution, unity!"His burden! Hear it, nations! Hear it, isles!Ere falls an hour, night's darkest hour of doom.The trial ends, the judgment now begins.Out, out of her, my people, saith your God!"—-Who towers aloft, as mountain girt with hills,Amid the strength of Ephraim's stalwart sons,To trumpet thus the closing acts of time?Speak, oracle, what sayest thou of thyself? 1100Who art thou, man of might and majesty?"Would God I might but tell thee who I am!Would God I might but tell thee what I know[10]!"Then was he of the Mighty—one with thoseDescended from the Empire of the Sun,Adown the glowing stairway of the stars?Regnant and ruling ere they left the realmsOf life supernal, left their sovereign thrones,To wander oft as outcasts of mankind,Unknown, unhonored, e'en like One who came 1110Unto His own, by them spat on and spurned?Avails it aught, their name or nation here?Their state and standing there, the vital tale.Peers of that Empire, nobles of the skies,The sceptered satraps of the King of Kings,The royal retinue of Him who reignsFirst-born of many brethren—Gibborim[11],Great ones worthy the Word[12] that was to come;Foreknown, elect, predestined, preordained,Sons of the Gods, and saviours of mankind, 1120Building the highway for Messiah's feet,And wheresoe'er He fareth following.I saw in vision such a one descend,And garb him in a guise of common clay;His glory veiling from the gaze of all,Who wist not that a great one walked with men;Nor knew it then the soul incarnate there,Betwixt the temporal and spirit spheresSo dense forgetfulness doth intervene;Yet learned his truth betime by angel tongues, 1130By voice of God, by heavenly whisperings.But who remains his mystery to solve,His letter to unlock with spirit key?The veil to lift by death and silence thrownO'er all the splendors of that life sublime?Sound, Angel, sound! thou fifth of seven[13], ordainedTo usher in the world-millennials,To storm the dungeon doors of history,And liberate the thoughts and deeds of men!Sound, trump of God! Voice of a thousand years, 1140Call of the Christ—His clear familiar tone,Heard in the ages and the aeons past,Told to the times and worlds that went before;Call of the Spirit, answered by the blood,Voice of the Shepherd, by the sheep well known.A living prophet unto dying time,Heralding the Dispensation of the End,When Christ once more His vineyard comes to prune,When potent weak confound the puny strong,Threshing the nations by the Spirit's power, 1150Rending the kingdoms with a word of flame;That here the Father's work may crown the Son's,And earth be joined a holy bride to heaven,A queen 'mid queens, crowned, throned, and glorified.Wherefore came down this angel of the dawn,In strength divine, a stirring role to playIn time's tense tragedy, whose acts are seven.His part to fell the false, replant the true,To clear away the wreckage of the past,The ashes of its dead and dying creeds, 1160And kindle newly on earth's ancient shrineThe Light that points to Life unerringly;Crowning what has been with what now must be;A mighty still bespeaking mightier.—-Earth rose from wintry sleep[14], baptized and cleansed,And on her tranquil brow, that seemed to feelThe holy and confirming hand of Heaven,The warm light in a wealth of comfort streamed;Nature's great floor green-carpeting anewFor some glad change, some joyful happening, 1170Told in the countless caroling of birds,Gilding the foliage, glorying the flowers,Mirroring mingled hues of earth and sky.Glad happening, in sooth, for ne'er before,Since burst the heavens when Judah's star-lit hillsHeard angel choristers peal joy's refrainAbove the mangered Babe of Bethlehem,Had earth such scene beheld, as now withinThe bosom of a sylvan solitude,Hard by the borders of a humble home, 1180Upon that fair and fateful morn was played.Players, immortal twain and mortal one,Standing but fourteen steps upon life's stair,An unlearned boy, thinker of thoughts profound,Boy and yet man, dreamer of lofty dreams.Not solemn, save betimes, when hovered nearSome wingéd inspiration from far worlds,Some great idea's all-subduing spell—His heart grew humbler then, his look more grave;Not melancholy—mirthful, loving life, 1190And brimming o'er with health and wholesome glee.A stalwart spirit in a sturdy frame,Maturing unto future mightiness.Bowing to God, yet bending to no creed,Adoring not a loveless deity,That saved or damned regardless of desert,Ne'er reckoning the good or evil done;Loving and worshipping the God of love,The gracious God of reason and of right,Long-suffering and just and merciful, 1200

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