A Judgment in Heaven
ATHWART the sod which is treading for God * the poet paced with hissplendid eyes;Paradise-verdure he stately passes * to win to the Father of Paradise,Through the conscious and palpitant grasses * of inter-tangledrelucent dyes.
The angels a-play on its fields of Summer * (their wild wings rustledhis guides’ cymars)Looked up from disport at the passing comer, * as they pelted eachother with handfuls of stars;And the warden-spirits with startled feet rose, * hand on sword, bytheir tethered cars.
With plumes night-tinctured englobed and cinctured, * of Saints, hisguided steps held onTo where on the far crystálline pale * of that transtellar Heaventhere shoneThe immutable crocean dawn * effusing from the Father’s Throne.
Through the reverberant Eden-ways * the bruit of his great adventdriven,Back from the fulgent justle and press * with mighty echoing so wasgiven,As when the surly thunder smites * upon the clangèd gates of Heaven.
Over the bickering gonfalons, * far-ranged as for Tartarean wars,Went a waver of ribbèd fire *—as night-seas on phosphoric barsLike a flame-plumed fan shake slowly out * their ridgy reach ofcrumbling stars.
At length to where on His fretted Throne * sat in the heart of Hisaged dominionsThe great Triune, and Mary nigh, * lit round with spears of theirhauberked minions,The poet drew, in the thunderous blue * involvèd dread of thosemounted pinions.
As in a secret and tenebrous cloud * the watcher from the disquietearthAt momentary intervals * beholds from its raggèd rifts break forthThe flash of a golden perturbation, * the travelling threat of awitchèd birth;
Till heavily parts a sinister chasm, * a grisly jaw, whose vergessoon,Slowly and ominously filled * by the on-coming plenilune,Supportlessly congest with fire, * and suddenly spit forth the moon:—
With beauty, not terror, through tangled error * of night-dipt plumesso burned their charge;Swayed and parted the globing clusters * so,—disclosed from theirkindling marge,Roseal-chapleted, splendent-vestured, * the singer there where God’slight lay large.
Hu, hu! a wonder! a wonder! see, * clasping the singer’s gloriesclingsA dingy creature, even to laughter * cloaked and clad in patchworkthings,Shrinking close from the unused glows * of the seraphs’ versicolouredwings.
A rhymer, rhyming a futile rhyme, * he had crept for convoy throughEden-waysInto the shade of the poet’s glory, * darkened under his prevalentrays,Fearfully hoping a distant welcome * as a poor kinsman of his lays.
The angels laughed with a lovely scorning: *—“Who has done this sorrydeed inThe garden of our Father, God? * ’mid his blossoms to sow this weedin?Never our fingers knew this stuff: * not so fashion the looms ofEden!”
The singer bowed his brow majestic, * searching that patchwork throughand through,Feeling God’s lucent gazes traverse * his singing-stoling and spirittoo:The hallowed harpers were fain to frown * on the strange thing come’mid their sacred crew,Only the singer that was earth * his fellow-earth and his own selfknew.
But the poet rent off robe and wreath, * so as a sloughing serpentdoth,Laid them at the rhymer’s feet, * shed down wreath and raiment both,Stood in a dim and shamèd stole, * like the tattered wing of a mustymoth.
“Thou gav’st the weed and wreath of song, * the weed and wreath aresolely Thine,And this dishonest vesture * is the only vesture that is mine;The life I textured, Thou the song *—my handicraft is not divine!”
He wrested o’er the rhymer’s head * that garmenting which wrought himwrong;A flickering tissue argentine * down dripped its shivering silverslong:—“Better thou wov’st thy woof of life * than thou didst weave thy woofof song!”
Never a chief in Saintdom was, * but turned him from the Poet then;Never an eye looked mild on him * ’mid all the angel myriads ten,Save sinless Mary, and sinful Mary *—the Mary titled Magdalen.
“Turn yon robe,” spake Magdalen, * “of torn bright song, and see andfeel.”They turned the raiment, saw and felt * what their turning did reveal—All the inner surface piled * with bloodied hairs, like hairs ofsteel.
“Take, I pray, yon chaplet up, * thrown down ruddied from his head.”They took the roseal chaplet up, * and they stood astonishèd:Every leaf between their fingers, * as they bruised it, burst andbled.
“See his torn flesh through those rents; * see the punctures round hishair,As if the chaplet-flowers had driven * deep roots in to nourish there—Lord, who gav’st him robe and wreath, * what was this Thou gav’stfor wear?”
“Fetch forth the Paradisal garb!” * spake the Father, sweet and low;Drew them both by the frightened hand * where Mary’s throne madeirised bow—“Take, Princess Mary, of thy good grace, * two spirits greater thanthey know.”