He from the Heaven of heavens of old forthrode,
In the paternal chariot did pursue,
And hurled Rebellion from that high abode—
I heard his last prayer, the last sigh he drew,
And I beheld him bow his holy head,
Whose locks were humid with ambrosial dew.
Chief Warrior, and chief Victor, bravely sped-
I conquer conquerors-all revenges wreak-
Thou, my last Foe, transfixed, suspended, dead!"
Within that shadowy vault a short shrill shriek,
Like an east gust in crannies of old tower,
There multiplies itself,... of what to speak?
Writhed as a woman in her travail hour,
Spectral, and yet in pain majestical,
How ghastly in her beauty's fatal dower,
The Phantasm of pale Earth! Amidst the Hall
She weeps,.. anon, into a fading wreath,
Dissolved; like mountain-mist that borrows all
Shapes vague and void, and melts upon the heath.
Cold lightning gleams, an ice-bolt rives--they sweep
That region like a storm-And where is Death?
E'en as the pageant of a haunted sleep
Of dreams whence the flesh quakes, that CentaurWraith,
With those huge Shapes, and that Sepulchral Deep,
Have vanished from the eye of Fancy and of Faith.
O SPIRIT of the Universe! whereby
Things have intelligible entity,
And are arrayed in glory to man's eye,
And Nature is, because perceived to be;
O thou, unto sad Earth as soul to sense,
Life-giving Light! her graves even yearn for thee...
Strange echoes in the dreamy gloom commence,
Ancestral ages are unsepulchred,
Old oracles awaken from suspense.
The Life-the Light of men is darkened—
Dark is the lustre of the Seraphim
The Word is silent,-lo, the Heavens are dead.
In mere nihility inane and dim,
This wreck of elements anon subsides;
Man hath slain GOD,-Creation dies with Him:
Time travels not-and Space no more abides.
Inquire of Night and Chaos. Can ye be,
If God be not? Adore Him,-Deicides !
May man survive his Maker? or, Light! thee?
If thou wert quenched, earth would be formless, void, And darkness o'er the deep brood silently:
Thou art not quenched, where Thought is still enjoyed―
Created Light of uncreated Light!
But even thou wert not, were Mind destroyed;
Thy heavenly radiance thou dost reunite
Unto its origin, in the obscure
Of the Eternal Being hidden quite.
Let the Almighty only sleep, no more
Motion and Time revolve. Their sweet concents
Both Heaven and Earth suspend; all tasks are o'er: The Watchers languish in their guardian tents; Nature's heart pauseth, in whose pulse we live;
And Man doth slumber with the Elements.
-Should He wax weary or old; the land would rive,
In arid clefts, and yawning gulphs disclose
Tartarean mysteries for the sky to shrive,
But that th' unconscious stars, in blind repose,
Like some fair scroll's illumined characters,
Wrinkled with eld, were darkling ere they rose.
And lo, the once Almighty voice deters
Ocean no more, far spooming, huge and wild;
But his dull weeds stagnate our Sepulchres.
-And might He die; .. would He die like a child
Of Earth, and perish from His Universe?
Nay, it from Him would perish first; exiled.-
With the great Sun and Moon and rolling spheres,
Swifter than a god's thought, precipitate,
Loosed from His Providence, it would disperse
Into the abyss of Chaos, ruinate:
And Chaos'-self be not. Not on the wreck
Of the demolished Earths, the expiring state
Of the Heaven of heavens, as from a courser's neck
Elanced, sheer o'er destruction's brink, shall He,
With His sublime despair, haste on, and deck
The End of All. Time, Space, Eternity,
Shall pass away, Darkness and Death be gone;
They perish from His presence utterly,
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