XI.

THE WAY TO HELL.

Nor in the silent grave the Almighty Word
Reposed; but, like a strong and armed man,
With that loud voice in Empyreum heard,

Leapt forth impetuous. Strong convulsions ran
Throughout Earth's womb, and rent her sepulchres,
Travailling with Death,-and Life again began.

His Presence in the Holiest Place appears,
And rends the veil that wont its rites debar
From eyes profane, unconsecrated ears :

Nor stays. Hell feels His coming from afar,
And conscious Chaos, with a huge recoil,
Hushes her waves and stills her stormy war.

-Star of my Soul! there where the billows boil About Night's throne, direct my downward way— How perilous the path! untried the toil!

-Lo! HE who, when the darkness loosed the day, The Virgin's story heard; then vanished—

-As now he vanishes !—

-Through this pure space his

passage lay.

N

-They feign who tell of rocks abrupt and dread,
Of precipice, and waste outrageous deep
Of waters, in an agonizing bed,

That sweat with torture while they madly sweep
With sounds of human voice! Still vacancy,
Void o'er whose formless face doth darkness sleep,

Is all the way, beyond the boundary

Of temporal space, which leads to that far bourne,
In the calm regions of Eternity,

To which the grave is but the gate-unworn
With tread corporeal, a pure element,
Of aught material as of sound forlorn.

Nor Moments are, nor Atoins have extent,

There; yet Duration is, and Substance dwells,
And Being absolute and permanent.

And Silence her eternal Oracles

Utters to empty forms and shapeless shades,
Who deafly list unutterable spells.

A quiet voyage, whence whoso dissuades,
With tales of tumult or detours of pain,
With Fancy peoples and with Sense pervades.

-Yet err they not, who of that dark domain
Report adventure strange and voyage hard;
The Mind sees in the wreck itself again.

For, of the Mind, 'tis as the Mind; and bard
Or sage that mystic region generates
In his own likeness, for his own reward,

Or purpose of the theme he illustrates;
Sinner and Saint their spirits in different guise
Reflect, as each his doom anticipates.

-Each tells the truth, yet each in telling lies,
Of that far region, which no region is,
All mystery, yet hath no mysteries-

Far region, ever yet at hand, I wis,
Within us and about us every-where-
It clothes the bed of death with ecstasies,
Anguish and agonies of Hope and Fear;
The worst wild pass, in sorest, saddest dream,
Of the lost soul, bewildering less, less drear ;
The sweetest vision that e'er cast its gleam
On blessed sleep, less dulcet and divine :-
Than that strange transit, ever in extreme!

Rude way to some, where spirits lost repine Wandering reluctant far from Paradise, Millions of years no measure can define,

Past in an instant, as the lightning is
And was-all alp, all desart, all ravine;
Horrour of Darkness girdling Hell's abyss.

So real yet unreal is the scene,
The darkness is its own, yet not of it;
For we are it: what veils it, is the screen

That hides us from ourselves; the path—the pit

They are within us, and we dwell in them; Yet are they not on Earth, in Heaven, nor yet

In Hell, and far from us. Me not condemn ;
For these are truths, and every truth's a spell,
Wisdom must value, Wit may not contemn;

Not dark to me, who, at the sacred well
Of prophecy, have cleansed my vision so,
That I can look on things invisible.

Hence, ye profane! Rapt in the Spirit, lo,
My mind dwells in its own eternity,

Beholds life's source and aim, its ebb and flow;

I am become a Seër, and am free

To speak. Now listen. Know, that Mind it is,
Creates the light whereby the Eye doth see,

And the night cometh, be the mind remiss
Or absent; nor is then its orb the Eye,
More than its ruins are Persepolis.

No Sun is here to measure o'er the sky
Day; Moon nor Stars, to rule the night, or tell
Of seasons here is no variety

Of Time, nor Time himself.

But, from the well

Of my own being, a pure sphere of light

I can project, and shape and syllable

With Form and Name; or on the darkness drear, Even as the eye of Childhood doth, create Pictures and friezes indistinct or clear.

These may poetick fancy aggregate

In her own time and space, eath as the sense
Of Euclid could construct and demonstrate

Ideas, as h's own intelligence

Perfect and pure, by power of his own mind,
Shaped by its prescript, and proceeding thence.
What I behold, no poet hath combined,
Nor skill of cunning painter could pourtray-
Path the Soul travels to her place assigned.

-Adown that unimaginable way,

Him I perceived of whom I spake erewhile,
Present and vanished ere that I could say,

"Behold!" The dying Saint, with a calm smile, So, the same instant, leaves this world beneath, And reaches th' other, passing no defile,

Of toil or travel; with his farewell breath,
Smoothly transported to a blessed goal:
Of Past or Future no account with Death.

All indivisible as his own Soul,
Eternity broods o'er the Infinite,

Time has no lapse and Space is one and whole.

Therefore it was, his transit on my sight

Glanced and was gone, returning through the void
To his far home, a disembodied sprite.

Upon what errand came he? Self-employed?
Or sent; revisiting the quaking earth,
Then trembling as about to be destroyed?

What name of old bare he? where was his birth?
Who knows not Amoz' son? The Prophet wept
Of Israel's doom the darkness and the dearth,