Classic Poem

SCENE I.

EVE .

Adam, where art thou? O return, return.
Too long hast thou been absent from my side
Searching the wild for fruits so scanty here,
So plentiful in Eden's happy clime!
Adam, where art thou? Ah, in vain I call;
No voice responds; and o'er the hideous waste
Chaotic silence broods; save when a blast
Far pealing from the stormy clarions
Of sworded Cherubim, from earth to heav'n
Reverberates our doom. O misery!
O misery of miseries,—to think,
But yesterday in Paradise; and now
Outcasts of nature, to the wrath expos'd
Of all creation by our Fall aggriev'd!
Nor less of furious demons raging round,
Unchain'd by our own act. But worse than all,
Far worse than outward elemental wrack,
Far worse than brutal or Satanic rage,
Is this conflicting storm I feel within;
Deep in my central being, such as never
I felt before in Paradisal days.
O loss supreme! O loss unutterable
Of grace divine, our Maker's noblest boon
To nature superadded! This departed,
I feel a very ruin of myself;
A strife of inward spiritual elements,
Each furiously against the other turn'd,
And wrestling in the darken'd soul's abyss.
Ah, wilful and perverse! who, not content
With that unmerited beatitude
So freely by creative love bestow'd,
Ambitiously must lend an eager ear
To the deceiving Serpent; and partake
Of the forbidden tree; and break the law
My Maker gave me; and prevail with Adam
To break it also; and had no touch of pity
For generations to be born of me,
Who through perpetual ages shall proclaim
Their Mother curs'd among all womankind,
Partakers of her guilt and penalty.
O parent earth, receive me! Dust I am,
And into dust I must again return;
So runs the sentence. O, that here it might
Find its fulfilment—happier far to die
Now in Creation's morning, than live on
To be a fount of countless miseries
To countless beings through all future time!
So might the Lord another Eve create,
Another Eve far better than the first,
Far better and more wise; who should not sin
As the first sinn'd. So might the Lord from her
Ordain another race of humankind,
Not to be born in sin, as must be born
All who are born of me. Ah, what if this
Which now I feel,—this faintness creeping o'er me,—
Ah, what if this be death! O Adam, Adam!
Haste to thy dying spouse; make haste to speak
Forgiveness of the past, and to enfold
Thy partner in a last embrace of love.

FIRST VOICE .

Hark, how all creation moans
In a thousand piteous tones,
Wailing its untimely fall
From a state celestial!
See for sylvan lawns appear
Arid wastes of desert drear!
See the world a ruin lie,
All through Eve's apostasy!

SECOND VOICE .

Lord. how long shall be the time
Ere the guilt of Adam's crime
Shall from nature be remov'd
In the smile of Thy Belov'd?
When shall justice dawn again?
When shall peace eternal reign?
When again on earth shall be
Truth and true felicity?

THIRD VOICE .

When his weakness man has shown
In his native strength alone;
When the world is worn and old;
When its faith is dead and cold;
When o'er sacred Carmel's head
Forty centuries have sped;
When a Virgin shall be born,
Like the rose without a thorn,
Wholly free from Adam's stain;—
Then shall justice dawn again;
Then again the waste shall bloom
As a lily from the tomb;
Heav'n re-open in the skies,
Earth renew its Paradise.
Enter the Archangel Gabriel, bearing an olive-branch and some fruits of the desert .

GABRIEL .

Hail, Mother of all ages! fontal source
Of humankind, who shall from thee become
A multitudinous river, surging on,
In ever-widening and majestic flood,
Into the ocean of eternity!
Weep not, O Eve!—I come to comfort thee.
In proof of which, behold this olive-branch,
Earnest of peace restor'd, and brighter days.
Know that, among all miseries, despair
Closing the gate of mercy, is the worst.
Rise, then, and be consol'd; and eat of what
I bring thee. Little yet suspectest thou
How much thy natural frame has been impair'd—
Immortal once by grace, and with the help
Of life's immortal tree; but now, alas,
As left in its own native feebleness,
By slightest effort wearied; and throughout
Corruptible with latent germs of death.
These fruits, less beautiful, indeed, than those
Of Paradise, are yet, so mercy wills,
Best suited to repair thy wasted strength.

EVE ( rising ).

O thou, whose form,
So radiantly bright, proclaims thee one
Of Heav'n's high Princes, I would eat, but grief
Forbids me,—grief, and keen solicitude
For absent Adam. At the break of dawn
He wander'd forth, leaving me strict command
Not to forsake the circuit of these rocks;
And now the evening shades are closing round
Without a sign of his desired return.
What if some beast have rent his tender flesh!
Or on his head the vivid thunderbolt
Have fallen unawares! or, sadder still,
What if in strong aversion he has left
His guilty Eve; and sought him out a nook
In some far region, there to pine and die
Safe from her hateful sight! Say, holy Angel,
If haply you have chanc'd to cross his path
Upon the borders of th' inclement waste?
For I am troubled at his lengthen'd stay.

GABRIEL .

But now I came upon him, as he sate,
His hands upon his forehead tightly clasp'd,
Beneath a solitary juniper,
On a high sandy hillock, gazing far
Across the plain in meditative mood,
And breathing forth his lamentable sighs
Upon th' unsympathising desert wild,
In fond remembrance of lost Paradise.
Some comfort, as I think, I minister'd,
Bearer of welcome news; and have the same.
For thee, when thou hast tasted of the fruit
He sends by me,—his poor love-offering,
Cull'd with laborious and painful search
From the rude bosom of the wilderness,
Not without wounds from many a prickly thorn.
Himself had come, but that his jaded limbs
Refus'd their task.

EVE ( eating of the fruit ).

Thanks, happy messenger, for those dear words
That tell me Adam lives, and still can love
The guilty origin of all his ills.
And thanks again to Adam and to thee
For this repast, too good for fallen Eve.
Already, with no small surprise I feel
In body as in mind my strength reviv'd.
And now, declare, I pray, what consolation
Is this thou bringest? How can comfort be,
Where all is gloom and blank despondency?

GABRIEL .

And can it be, then, Eve, thou hast forgotten
That promise most august, so lately made thee
By thy all-pitying Maker, that “the Woman
Should crush the Serpent's head?”—I fear thou hast;
Or whence this hopelessness?—Now, therefore, list
To what I here announce. Far distant hence,
Behind yon red horizon where the sun
Is dipping low, there stands a holy Hill,
Bas'd on the summit of the mountain-tops,
Which men hereafter shall Moria call,
Or “Mount of Vision;” now with cedars crown'd,
Encircling with their fragrant depth of shade
A verdant meadow, but in times to come
To be surmounted by a glorious Temple,
Of Sion nam'd. For there hath God decreed
To set His habitation; there hath fix'd
His everlasting love, and firm impress'd
The sacred stamp of His Almighty Name.
To this most holy and majestic Mount,
Know, Eve, that I, in pity of the grief
That weighs thy soul, have been enjoin'd to bring thee;
And there, in mystic vision, to disclose,—
What shall console thee much,—the lovely sight
Of that eternally predestin'd Maid
Reserv'd to spring from thee in after-days,
Immaculate in Conception as in Birth,
Whose Seed shall be the Saviour of thy race,
Uniting in one Person, all divine,
Two natures unconfus'd, divine and human,
For evermore. There also shalt thou see
(As in the mirror of th' Eternal Mind,
Which simultaneous with all the times,
At once in present, past, and future, lives)
In glorious procession sweep along
Before thy dazzled gaze, Saints upon Saints,—
The Patriarchs of the world,—their homage paying
To their and thy fair Daughter, whom on earth
They antedate, coeval in the skies,
The veritable offspring of thy womb,
For ever bless'd among all womankind;
And seeing shalt rejoice.

EVE .

O happiness!
King Angel, let us go without delay.
Lead on; I follow thee.

GABRIEL .

To Adam first
We bend our steps; he also is permitted
To see this blissful sight, that so your joy
United may be greater. Yet, O Eve,
When of these visionary scenes ye drink,
Deem not that ye behold the things themselves,
Or aught beside a semblance, imag'd forth,
With help of gross aerial elements
By angel ministries, beneath the veil
Of outward shapes; as suits your fallen state,
Whose now beclouded soul, enslav'd to earth
By her own fatal and rebellious choice,
Her heavenly intuitions half-obscur'd,
Henceforth, so long as she inhabits flesh,
Must be content by earthly images
To picture to her gaze immortal things.
Nay Heav'n itself, could it be brought before
Your feeble vision, would perforce assume
The bulky outline of material forms,
Its essence pure escaping human reach.

GABRIEL .

See, Eve, already how the wilderness
Is casting off its late funereal garb,
And all in vernal beauty decks itself—
Emblem of hope reviv'd, and happier times.
Onward; the furthest spot to human speed
Is little distant if an Angel lead.

PRIESTS .

On Sion's hill a Temple stands,
No toilsome work of human hands:
A Temple beauteous in design,
Replete with mysteries divine:
A Temple of eternal fame;
And Mary is its mystic name.

VIRGINS .

Or ere the skyey dome was rear'd;
Or ere the mountain-tops appear'd;
Or ere the raging sea was chain'd;—
The Lord this Temple had ordain'd:
And its secure foundations laid
Before the Seraphim were made.

PRIESTS .

Deep in His counsels all divine,
In silence grew the lovely shrine;
In silence rear'd aloft its head,
And like the fragrant cedar spread,
That keeps from age to age its throne
Upon the heights of Lebanon.

VIRGINS .

What in the night of times gone by
Was ever in th' eternal Eye,
Now in the world's reviving morn
Begins on human sight to dawn;
Our hands have touch'd, our eyes behold,
This Temple of pellucid gold.

PRIESTS .

Still with the tide of onward time
Expanding in a growth sublime,
Soon shall its outer courts extend
Throughout the world from end to end,
And gather into one embrace
The Jewish and the Gentile race.

VIRGINS .

Hail, exquisite resplendent shrine
Of the supreme eternal Trine!
Hail, womb incomprehensible,
In which the Father's Word shall dwell!
Hail, Virgin, free from Adam's curse!
Hail, Temple of the universe!

PRIESTS .

Ah, could we but a moment spy,
Thy glorious inner Sanctuary;
What miracles would meet our gaze,
Exceeding all that earth displays!
Such as befit the Palace bright
Preparing for the Infinite.

VIRGINS .

Ah, could we view the altar fair,
That glistens so divinely there;
Could we but scent the incense sweet
That hovers round that mercy-seat;
Could we but hear the lovely song,
Which evermore those courts prolong;—

PRIESTS AND VIRGINS TOGETHER .

Then should we all perforce avow
That Heav'n itself had come below;
In order that the Lord of grace
Might find on earth a fitting place
Whence—in depths of ruin hurl'd—
To reorganise the world!