Classic Poem

THE PRIZE POEM ON A SACRED SUBJECT

He who had leaned on Jesus' breast, and stood
By the sad Mother underneath the Rood,
Stood now in Patmos; he who lately smiled
Among his " little children " stood exiled
From those his children of the Churches seven;
He who had seen on earth the dawn of heaven,
Was now to mount from earth ere death allowed;
Not now in body entering in the cloud,
But in the spirit o'er the clouds elate,
God's throne, earth's destiny, to contemplate.
Him following, as him the Spirit led,
May we that vision see which traverse_d
Time and eternity, now deep in gloom,
Now brightened with the glories which illume
The courts of God, sublimely mystical
With fates deciphered not, which ever shall
Have their accomplishment, evolving still
Till dying Time his glass with earth's last dust shall fill.
In present darkness and distress arose
That Revelation; far was he from those
Whom he had loved and guided and sustained,
An aged, banished man; ah! what remained
Save loneliness and pain in Patmos' isle?
So that from prayer he stayed his lips awhile,
Or his weak hands from labour in the mine,
To think of them with love almost divine.
For them had he been spent, for them had wrought
The new philosophy, divinely taught,
That love is knowledge, and that God is love.
For them had striven to defend and prove
The truth 'gainst all perversity of man.
Now that the aged Metropolitan
Was taken from their head, would not the foe
With fiercer rage attempt to overthrow
The truth of God? Aye, well he marked the sign
That the wild boar would rend the sacred vine,
Tempest th' ecclesiastic ship befall,
Floods beat, and rains descend on the rock-founded wall.
'twas partly that false teachers now did swarm,
With sophistries the simple flock to charm;
Full of confusions were they, swoln with pride,
Skilful with wordy show the truth to hide:
And partly 'twas that on the Roman height
Fell Persecution gathered all her might:
Already Christ's true witness Antipas
Had fallen, and himself a victim was,
Deported thus; and many more must sink
In martyrdom, while some might haply shrink
From hideous torment, and the faith deny:
Ah, bitter peril, fierce necessity!
On this sad present founded, rose complete
The vision of the Holy Paraclete:
For they are ever honoured most who lean
To human wants from out that cloud serene
Of solemn thought, in which they fain would dwell,
But that the world hath need of them to quell
Its anarchies: they who with burning heart
Come down their own strong essence to impart,
And labour noblest things to keep alive:
True men of action, though contemplative.
Many might I recount who have been blessed
Amid such toil with an entrancing rest,
Or visioned splendour; many whom the Dove
Divine, poetic, hath enswathed above
In snowy plumes and flashing Iris-gleams:
Two I remember, who in heavenly dreams
Were most like John; and exiles both were they,
Like him; and laboured, as did he, to stay
The thoughts of men on God in ancient time:
He who by Chebar saw the wheels sublime;
He who was called beloved in Babylon,
Who by the river's brink beheld the throne
Of judgment set, and all the clouds of heaven
Round One who came to judge, to whom was given
Kingdom and state and everlasting power.
That inspiration in thy later hour,
Apostle of the Lamb, uplifted thee
To the same tower of vision, whence to see
A greater revelation; more intense,
As more capacious, grew thy ravished sense,
Apostle of the Lamb; and in its scope
The depth of fear embraced, the height of hope.
Great visions gathered form, and towered, and passed:
Some awful with the earthquake, fire, and blast;
Some with the hope of peace; some manifest
Of calm abiding and eternal rest;
Yet mostly awful: prophet never paled
With terrors like to his whose senses quailed
In telling out the vials of God's wrath:
Sad thought, that even he who chiefly hath
Love's gospel written, saw the utmost woes
Of plague and fire and sword, and daemon foes!
Sorrow must needs be, then, on earth the law.
Tell out the Vision which this prophet saw,
The Constant and the Changeful: let it be
divided thus; for like the Thymele
In theatre antique, that awful shrine
From which the passion drew a power divine,
One part through all the vision stood unchanged,
Awful, sublime, although the spirit ranged
From scene to scene, from act to act of dread,
'mid horror, anguish, doubt, to triumph led.
Take first the Constant Vision; 'tis the Throne
Steadfast in heaven, 'tis He who sits thereon;
Within its midst the Lamb eternally,
Round it the rainbow and the shining sea,
Most nigh to it the six-fold winge_d Four;
And next, the crowne_d Elders who adore,
'mid tabernacle walls abiding evermore
There stands the Holiest of all, complete
With Presence-cloud of glory, Mercy-seat,
And cherub: there the Sanctuary dight
With rainbow hues more excellently bright
Than those old curtains purple, scarlet, blue;
Furnished with Incense Altar, as was due,
But not with Sacrificial, where did reign
For evermore the Lamb that had been slain:
There for the Brazen Sea the Sea of Glass;
There for the Golden Candlestick there was
That branch of Angel-stars; for Ministers
Ranged in their courses served the Presbyters.
Vast symbol of divine stability,
Of love divine not less true imagery!
Great angels on their missions issue thence,
As from the covert of Omnipotence;
Yet thither come, as incense to the altar,
The secret prayers with which the earth doth falter,
The bitter wrongs with which the earth doth groan:
And by the vision is this precept shown,
That justice, mercy, peace, o'er all do reign,
And loveliness and sanctity maintain
The throne that rules o'er all; 'tis God who bears
The sovereignty supreme; God who prepares
The final issues; God beneficent
Who works in time and change His own intent.
Take then the Changing Vision: 'tis the earth,
Corrupt, untimely, every monstrous birth
Of time still urging through more fearful fall
Unto the end foredoomed, the judgment set for all.
The strife of good and evil sears the ground,
Thickens the air, of earth; in some profound
Of gloom or glory hangs the central scale
That balances creation; Virtue pale,
Wisdom contemned, and Faith despairing, lie
At mercy of earth's ghastly harlotry;
While Providence is mystery with the seals,
Omnipotence is war with trumpet-peals,
Justice is wrath with vials of the law:
Tell out the Changing Vision which he saw.
He saw the seals unclosed: the horses four
Rose with their riders dread; the Conqueror,
Who bore the bow; and War, who bore the sword;
Famine, who of the balances was lord;
And Death the fourth, pale Death, whose train is hell
Then cry the souls that 'neath the altar dwell;
The sun grows black, the stars their courses leave;
God's chosen in each tribe the seal receive;
And issue forth, while silence is in heaven,
The sounding Angels with their trumpets seven.
He heard them sound: the earth in plague and blight
Plunged her black form amid the angry light
From baleful meteors cast; impetuous broke
On th' upper air 'mid dim sulphureous smoke
The brood of hell, whose king Abaddon was:
There was the rush of countless steeds that pass
To fields of death; the third of men are slain;
Yet unrepentant they who still remain:
Then in this dreariness of blood and shade
Obscure and monstrous shapes the world invade,
The Dragon, Beast, False Prophet, cursed three,
Earth's torturers, infernal trinity:
So that the end is nigh; with solemn pace
The vial-bearing Angels take their place,
Like sacrificers clothed in simple white:
Their vials fall upon the world of night.
He saw them fall: as one by one they fell,
Ulcers and blains afflict the brood of hell;
The sea tormented heaves like clotted blood;
In blood the rivers pour their latest flood;
The blazing sun consumes the flesh of men;
With blasphemies they gnaw their tongues for pain;
A voice from heaven resounds that all is done,
Bursts forth at once each dread phaenomenon#,
And nature seems reversed; the end is come,
The judgment trumpet breaks above the tomb.
Such was the Changing Vision that he saw,
So fraught with shapes of might, with scenes of awe,
Which, ending time, predicts eternity.
Hard is it in the throng of imagery
With steady sense to mark the deeper thought
Which harmonises all, and how is wrought
A perfect whole from parts as vast and wild
As unhewn blocks by giant builders piled
To form a temple: yet no phantasies
Of fragments flung by chance, be sure, are these:
And he who searches deeply may descry
The central meanings which do underlie
The total vision, and through all compact,
Seals, trumpets, vials, in their seven-fold act.
Two cities and two women John did see,
And then a third, which seemed at once to be
City and woman in one mystery.
Sodom and Babylon, those cities twain,
The den of lust, the seat of rule and gain:
Through that were all those vengeful trumpets blown,
Through this those vials upon earth were thrown:
That Sodom was Jerusalem, e'en she
Who killed the prophets, and for blasphemy
Condemned the Lord of speech; there with his rod
The prophet measured out the house of God;
There the two martyrs prophesied and died
That Babylon was Rome, the seat of pride,
Raised o'er the waters, in whose storied heights
Was lodged the eagle of a thousand flights;
Where still supreme the Gentile idols stand,
And from the Capitol the world command.
Two women he beheld; the one was fair,
Clothed with the sun, bedecked with stars her hair,
The moon beneath her; travailing in pain
Above the earth she hovered, and was fain
To shun the dragon, who in wait did lie
To slay her child, and forced her still to fly
To deserts void in that laborious birth,
While he his monstrous bulk upon the earth
Deploys, nor ceases from his injury.
Then lo! another rushes o'er the sea
In aid of him, a wondrous form, whose mien
Hushed e'en the foam; it was the beast marine,
The seven-headed monster, who became
The dragon's delegate, and in his name
Had worship upon earth, the scarlet beast,
Whom the False Prophet served, a hideous priest.
This monster bore a fair similitude
Of woman, all in Tyrian dye imbued,
A sorceress, who did with blood entrance
The kings of earth in ghostly dalliance;
Her crimson hands a charmed chalice bore,
Of gems a sparkling diadem she wore,
And on her brow was written Mystery:
The second woman of the vision she
As that first woman was compelled to fly
To deserts void, so Christianity
Of wandering Judaism with pain was born,
The child received to God, the mother left forlorn
As on the monster sat the sorceress,
So Rome upon the seven hills did press
Her awful domination, still supplied
From all earth's treasuries, still magnified
By all the kings of earth, whom she enchained;
Yet doomed to perish hated and disdained
e'en by her lovers, pitilessly maimed,
Her body burnt, stript naked, made ashamed
And thus the prophet imaged in his day
Jerusalem and Rome, the powers that lay
Against the truth; the women represent
That which the cities in the vision meant,
Jerusalem and Rome: the same great thought
Breathes through the whole; a fight is to be fought,
A triumph won; and in these types he viewed
Far off the triumph, near the fearful feud.
But now, behold, the triumph comes at last,
The strife is over and the woes are past;
The troubled vision ends in glorious rest;
Time by eternity is dispossessed.
Behold the third great sign from heaven glide,
The New Jerusalem, adorned a Bride,
City and woman both: with turrets spread,
As with a royal crown, her shining head;
Twelve gates of gleaming pearl those towers adorn,
As gems upon a diadem are worn;
Descends through all its depth her shining wall
Like royal robes that down the body fall;
Her rich foundations, like phylacteries
On garments worn with names engraven rise
This is the Bride of Christ, His Church elect
And precious, unto her espousals decked:
The Bridegroom tarries not, the feast is set;
The heavenly guests for evermore are met.
He saw the joy: the angel bade him stand
Upon a mountain high; the promised land
Of the New Heaven and Earth this Moses saw,
The happiness, the sanctity, the awe,
The adoration: he beheld the waves
Of that red sea of fire and glass that laves
The second Salem of the great I Am:
He heard the song of Moses and the Lamb
Mixed with the Alleluias to the Three
That were, that are, that evermore shall be.