Elias Part 10

All power then powerless to change its plight; For what avails the burnt-out lamp to light?

Justice can lay no blame on blameless shelves, Nor mercy save when souls will d.a.m.n themselves.

"Twofold is death, but life has threefold sway; What ne'er created was, endures alway.

The organized disorganized may be, 2230 But not the life that lives undyingly.

Nothing bides nothing: that which is shall be; Though form, not essence, change unceasingly.

s.p.a.ce, spirit, matter, all eternal are, And death but on creation wages war.

Whate'er beginning had may have an end, But life eternal doth itself defend.

"Man's inmost spark, his being's primal fire, As birthless and as deathless as its Sire,-- No more the maker of that unmade germ 2240 Than man the framer of the spirit form, Born and begotten in the first estate, G.o.d's creature, whom G.o.d's power can uncreate.

Spirit to spirit, dust to dust returns, But bright intelligence forever burns, Though banished from the presence of the light, Exiled and wandering in the outer night, Remembering past, and mourning present blight, The end whereof, a mystery to man, Unsolved while bending 'neath the mortal ban, 2250 None but the doomed partaker e'er shall scan.

"Higher than heaven, deeper than h.e.l.l, profound, His course wherein no crookedness is found-- An onward, upward, never-ending round.

"Comes forth all life at resurrection's call, When soul immortal sheds its mortal thrall; The just first rising, who with Christ shall reign, While sinners tarry till He sounds again, Late issuing, in shame and self contempt, When Lucifer, unbound, shall newly tempt, 2260 Still striving for a glory not his own, Till by the Arm Almighty overthrown.

"Spirit and body, blending, make the soul, As halves, uniting, form the perfect whole.

Spirit and element, commingled, one, Inheriting the Glory of the Sun, Symbol a greater union yet to be, When heaven and earth shall wed eternally, And rest.i.tution's edict seal and bind Eternal matter to eternal mind, 2270 Like unto like, for night weds not with day, And order's mandate e'en the G.o.ds obey.

"The sealing of the s.e.xes, mate to mate, Earnest of exaltation's lofty state, Where evermore they reign as queens and kings, And endless union endless increase brings; While serve as angels the unwedded ones, Abandoning their right to royal thrones.

"One are the human twain, as sheath and sword-- Woman and man, the lady and the lord; 2280 Each pair the Eve and Adam of some world, Perchance unborn, or into s.p.a.ce unhurled.

"From endless spirit, endless element, The worlds that glow in glory's firmament.

Created all and governed all by law, Perfect they s.h.i.+ne, or show sin's fatal flaw; Their Maker's will obey or disobey, And felons found a felon's debt[21] must pay; While wiser orbs, obedient at school, Are robed in radiance, and have learned to rule-- 2290 Are lords of light, resplendent and supreme, E'en as great Kolob 'mid the kokaubeam.

"Earth a celestial law hath magnified[22], And by that law shall she be sanctified, And by the same shall she be glorified; By fire refined, the gold from dross set free, s.h.i.+ning forever as a crystal sea, Celestial seer-stone[23], making manifest All things below to souls upon her breast-- Chosen, omniscient, children of the Sun, 2300 Offspring of Adam, Michael, Ancient One, Who comes anon his fiery throne to rear, His council summoning from far and near.

Ten thousand times ten thousand bow the knee, And "Father" hail him, "King," eternally.

"For so are governed all those worlds of fire, That chorus in a universal choir The glory of the Lord Omnipotent, Whose power hath framed through infinite extent The splendors of the flas.h.i.+ng firmament; 2310 Sire of the universe, and King of Kings, O'er countless realms; each dusty dot that springs To blazing being, empire of a G.o.d, Who equals Him, yet owns His sovereign rod, The Central Scepter of Omnipotence, The G.o.d of G.o.ds, Supreme Magnificence, Regnant o'er all that is or e'er shall be, Throned on the summit of eternity.

"Souls there above who once below all things, All things inherit, and are priests and kings, 2320 Pillars immovable, princes unto G.o.d, No more outgoing from that high abode, Where past and future present are alway, And years a thousand even as a day".

Who here have lived, or would have lived, the law[24], Exalted, numbered with the G.o.ds, he saw, One with the wisdom of Omniscience, And glorious with All Intelligence.

So thorough and so just the perfect plan, Weighing the motive with the work of man! 2330

Nor this the t.i.the of what those tongues unfold, Nor t.i.the of t.i.the of what can ne'er be told.

As unto Judah's one and Joseph's three[25], Who tasted of translation's ecstacy; Or him who, spared from Babel's doom, beheld Messiah's unclothed spirit[26], faith-compelled; Or him of Tarsus, tranced, the triple seer[27]

Of things unlawful to be uttered here;-- As unto souls like these was given to see The marvel past, the mystery to be, 2340 So upon him, their peer of modern days, The Source of all-revealing sends its rays.

Broken the fountains of the upper deep; Opened the sepulchres where ages sleep; The past, the future, now the present leaven; With truth from earth blends righteousness from heaven, Welding the parted links of being's chain, Old making new, the dead live again.

O message marvelous to eyes and ears!

Voices and visions of the mystic spheres! 2350 Voices of noonday, visions of the night, Whisperings of angels, and their presence bright!

Voice of the Architect of Life's vast Plan, Speaking as G.o.d to G.o.d, as man to man!

CANTO EIGHT

The Lifted Ensign[1]

Armed now with knowledge, panoplied with power, With two-edged sword of G.o.d's authority, Girded by heavenly hands on shepherds twain[2], The first and second of a gathering flock, Transcribers of the buried book of gold, Whose mystic page, unsealed by gift divine, 2360 Save part withheld of mightier mystery, Now challenges the wise and wondering world;-- Armed and equipt, with staff, and stone in sling, Strong in the Lord, the G.o.d of Israel, The dauntless David of a later day Fares forth to meet the Giant of Untruth[3].

Thenceforth a warrior and a wanderer, A victor hated for his victories; Targe for the javelin of jealousy; Hunted and hounded through the wilderness; 2370 Outlawed by all, all save a loyal few, The patient sharers of his painful lot, Companions of his mortal pilgrimage, Recalled with him, their earthly errand o'er, To grace the courts of High Jerusalem.

But ere a day for that departure dawns, Unveiled once more the face of mystery.

Speaks from the musty tomb of buried time, The all-remembering Spirit of the Past:

"Time yet was young[4], but old iniquity, 2380 Outcast of worlds redeemed, on earth was rife, And, self-enchained, a fallen race lay p.r.o.ne At feet of Lucifer. And demons laughed, And h.e.l.l rejoiced, and all that ribald host Clapt hand, and danced and jeered derisively; While G.o.ds and angels wept, their pitying tears Whitening the spectral mountains cold and lone, Wakening to virile springs a spirit waste.

"And there the sainted commonweal[5] arose, Haven divine, hill of the sanctified, 2390 Oasis-like 'mid burning sands of sin; G.o.d's people, pure in heart, and one in all, No poor among them, pride and greed unknown; Saved by the tidings first to Adam taught, And next to Enoch's generation told.

"Righteous, they dreamt no evil, feared no ill, And death, the universal doom, defied.

Earth not their pillow; they shall one day pa.s.s From mortal to immortal painlessly.

"Self's chain was sundered[6]; devils glared aghast, 2400 And gnashed their teeth with disappointed rage, Trembling in terror lest perdition's pit Engulf them ere the time. Then gathering power, As if for Armageddon's conflict[7] dire, When triumphs Michael o'er the foe unchained, h.e.l.l's molten belch of burning hatred hurled Upon those hapless sons of earth who scorned The refuge of the righteous; her bright towers, Far-beaming with terrestrial radiance[8]-- The promise fair of full celestial change,-- 2410 Bidding the vile beware, nor venture near The awful mountain of G.o.d's holiness.

"Waxed foul the world in wickedness, piled high A hideous monument of shame and crime, Which, toppling with its own weight, cras.h.i.+ng fell, Whelming in ruin the guilty race of man, Whose spirits, as fierce seas their dust devoured, By fiercer fiends to dungeon deeps were driven.

Nor thence redeemed till He who died for all Soared from the cross to set the captive free[9]. 2420

"The while, on fearless wings of purity, Cleaving as bird or ransomed soul the air, The sainted city entered into rest, Envied of Babel, climbing robber-like[10]; Bride of the Highest, midway hovering, Till folded in the bosom of the G.o.ds, Where Zions from unnumbered worlds have fled.

Type temporal of spirit ant.i.type, A future moral height foreshadowing.

"Foreseen the fatal deluge. Ere the doom 2430 Of all save faithful Noah and his seven,-- Tri-branching tree[11] of race regenerate, Yielding anew life's fruit and foliage,-- Earth mourned as Rachel, Rizpah, o'er the slain, The slain of men unborn, who yet must die Degenerate in the days that were to be.

"Then Enoch wept, and sued in sympathy, And G.o.d gave answer thus:

'Earth yet shall rest, And, sanctified, shall see her Saviour reign, 2440 Monarch of worlds, His realms as ocean sands.

But it shall be within the latter days, The days of vengeance and of wickedness, When men the Sole-begotten crucify, And He shall go again to judge the world, Proclaimed by truth, forerun by righteousness, Gathering the pure-in-heart unto a place-- A holy place my people shall prepare, There to await my coming, mine and thine.

Then shown the resurrection's shadowing: 2450 Zion above, from all creations past, Shall meet and blend with Zion from below; Spirits and bodies of the just shall join, And in the midst my tabernacle be.

Yea, as I live, so will I forth again, My oath to thee, my covenant, to fulfill; And earth shall garb in glory of her G.o.d, And Noah's righteous seed in Me rejoice.'"

These things spake G.o.d to Moses, from the mount Whose name is veiled to ken of humankind; 2460 And thus that prophet, but through unbelief And cunning craftiness, at war with Light, The fulness of his message sleeps till now, When one like unto him[12] and Him he typed, Brings forth the buried meaning from its grave.

On twain of ocean-parted hemispheres, Saw noon of time a twofold type[13] of peace, A pledge, a token, of millennial rest, An earnest of the Commonweal to come; But no fulfillment of the promise old, 2470 No ripe fruition of the ancient oath, To Enoch sworn, through Moses re-affirmed, By Ephraim's prophet made to live again.

Promise now sought fulfillment[14],--it was time; For weary earth lay groaning 'neath her load.

"Unclean, unclean," her cry, as leprous sin With foul intent clasped close her shrinking form, And baned with foetid breathing all her soul.

Long she had mourned and wept o'er life's decay; Her waning strength, from age and weariness, 2480 Her mother powers, unholy pa.s.sion's prey, Bringing, in lieu of giants, pygmies forth, To fall untimely on her withered breast.

Dwindling and dwarfed in all save wickedness, And knowledge, oft made pander unto ill, With learning gorged, for wisdom famis.h.i.+ng, Man both a glutton and a starveling seemed.

For Self, the sordid, sat once more enthroned, Binding in servile chains a universe, Where mightily men strove for place and fame, 2490 Greedy for power, as gluttonous for gold.

And who sought neighbor's weal, save kith and kin Or petted friendling prest a favored claim?