{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_37718/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_37718","id":"gutenberg_37718","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37718","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Poetry","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Latter Day Saint churches -- Poetry","Latter Day Saints","Latter Day Saints -- Poetry"],"text":"Produced by the Mormon Texts Project,\nhttp://bencrowder.net/books/mtp. Volunteers: Jean-Michel\nCarter, Ben Crowder, Eric Heaps, Tod Robbins.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nELIAS\n\n_An Epic of the Ages_\n\nBY\nORSON FERGUSON WHITNEY\n\n_Progress eterne! thou goest hand in hand\nWith Life eterne, and naught but death e'er dies_.\n\nREVISED AND ANNOTATED EDITION\n\n\n\n\nCopyright, 1914\nO. F. Whitney\nSalt Lake City, Utah\n\n\n\n\nFOREWORD\n\n\n\"Elias\" was begun in the spring of 1900, and was first published in\nthe autumn of 1904, when an edition de luxe, limited to one hundred\nand fifty copies, and two less pretentious editions, were subscribed\nfor by friends of the author. He was hardly a party to the project,\nthe initial step being taken without his knowledge. Prior to that time\nhe had read the poem to select gatherings in private homes and in two\nof the leading church schools, but had no thought of printing it so\nearly, until solicited by a committee of prominent citizens to allow\nthem to undertake, in his behalf, its publication.\n\nThat committee consisted of Governor Heber M. Wells, Senator George\nSutherland, President Anthon H. Lund, Major Richard W. Young, and Mr.\nH. L. A. Culmer. These gentlemen, out of pure public spirit and a\nfriendly feeling for the author, had associated themselves together\nfor this purpose. Though aware of many defects in his work, and\nanxious to mend them before facing the public and the critics, he\nnevertheless accepted gratefully the very generous offer. All the\nmembers of the committee gave to the enterprise their hearty support,\nand two of them, Major Young and Mr. Culmer, conducted most of the\nbusiness necessary to putting the book through the press.\n\nSince the original issuance the author has endeavored to bring the\nwork into a more finished state, and the results are now before the\nreader. The poem is in twelve parts--a prelude, ten cantos, and an\nepilogue. Following these are explanatory notes, for the benefit of\nstudents; the introduction of the epic as a text book into the schools\nbeing one of the purposes for which it was written.\n\nThe character and scope of the work are partly indicated by the title,\n\"Elias--An Epic Of The Ages.\" It is an attempt to present, in verse\nform, historically, doctrinally, and prophetically, the vast theme\ncomprehended in what the world terms \"Mormonism.\"\n\n                                                   THE AUTHOR.\n\n\n\n\nDEDICATION\n\n(SEE NOTE.)\n\n\n  This song to thee, friend, chieftain, sixth to rise\n  From him, the foremost of a seeric line,\n  Mock of the worldly, marvel of the wise,--\n  His martyred brother's son! May light divine,\n  Which 'lumined them, forever on thee shine,\n  Flooding with splendors new thy lineal fame;\n  And ancient rays with modern beams combine\n  To glorify a brow whose stalwart aim,\nTo merit heaven's high praise, nor fear a world's false blame!\n\n\n\n\nTHEME\n\n(SEE NOTE.)\n\n\n\"And if you will receive it, this is Elias, which was to come to\ngather together the tribes of Israel and restore all things.\"\n\n\n\n\nARGUMENT\n\n\nThe aim of this poem is to point out those manifestations of the\nDivine Mind and those impulsions from human enterprise which have\ncontributed in all ages to the progress of the race toward perfection.\n\nThus it deals not only with man's origin and destiny, with earth's\ncreation, redemption, and ultimate glorification, but with events and\nepochs leading up to and having those greater ends as their decreed\nconsummation. The Christ theme, in its heavenly and earthly phases, is\nsupplemented by the sacred and secular history of man upon both\nhemispheres. God's direct dealings through prophets, apostles, and\nother inspired agents, and His indirect dealings through poets,\npainters, philosophers, inventors, discoverers, statesmen, kings,\nconquerors and the like, are indicated, and the experiences of the\nChurch of Christ in various dispensations portrayed.\n\nThe title \"Elias,\" signifying restoration and preparation,--the lesser\ngoing before the greater with those objects in view,--is used to\ndenote and personify the Genius of Progress, whose beneficent\nworkings, under the guidance of the Infinite Spirit, through the aeons\nand the ages, behind the scenes and upon the stage of human action,\nare the warp and woof of the entire poem. The medial point is the\nDispensation of the Fulness of Times, the era of restitution, when the\nHouse of God is to be set in order, and all things in Christ are to be\ngathered into one.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nPrelude--The Author's Purpose\n\nCanto One--As From a Dream\n\nCanto Two--The Soul of Song\n\nCanto Three--Elect of Elohim\n\nCanto Four--Night and the Wilderness\n\nCanto Five--The Messenger of Morn\n\nCanto Six--From Out the Dust\n\nCanto Seven--The Arcana of the Infinite\n\nCanto Eight--The Lifted Ensign\n\nCanto Nine--Upon the Shoulders of the Philistine\n\nCanto Ten--The Parted Veil\n\nEpilogue--The Angel Ascendant\n\nNotes\n\n\n\n\nPRELUDE\n\n(SEE NOTE.)\n\n\n  The work for Him I asked and aimed to do,\n  Ere death should claim my dust, my spirit free,--\n  That, looking down from where the wise and true\n  Inherit glory, gracious eyes might see\n  A spark I kindled beaming endlessly,\n  And lighting other wanderers to the goal\n  Where blends the life that is with life to be;--\n  Now done, or well or ill, the lettered scroll\nOf what is writ on heart and mind I here unroll.\n\n\n\n\nCANTO ONE\n\nAs From a Dream[1]\n\n\nYouth's morn was breaking, when I dreamed a dream,\nSplendid as springtime's weft of wonders rare;\nIdyllic vision, beauteous, bright romance,\nGlory of love and glamor of renown.\nI dreamed that fame held all of happiness,\nSave the sweet charm that lurked in woman's smile.\n\nWealth wooed I not, nor power--to wear the sign\nAnd wave the symbol of authority;\nTo speak, and have hosts tremble; or to frown,\nAnd find all pale and prostrate at my feet.                       10\nBut oh! to sway, like swinging forest boughs\nIn summer breeze, men's yearning hearts and minds,--\nSway them in duty's name, in virtue's cause,\nBy tongue of thunder or by pen of flame,\nLeaving some wise, sublime, benefic deed,\nSome word or work of merit and of might,\nTo fix the fleeting gaze of centuries!\n\nGlory and love--these were my guides divine,\nThe planet passions of my destiny,\nThe Baal and Astoreth[2] to whom I bowed,                         20\nAt human shrines a worldly worshiper,\nAdoring beauteous dust, my fellow clay,\nAnd coveting an earthly immortality.\n\nAnd at the feet of these dear deities,\nCareless of great Jehovah's smile or frown,\nIn the fresh morning of my youth's fair might,\nSlumbering I dreamed, till golden grew the dawn.\n\nA strange and stern awakening--a sky,\nPearl, gold, and sapphire, clear and calm till then,\nCloud-curtained, grim, with anger audible,                        30\nTortured and torn with swift-flung darts of fire;\nBooming and crashing, bolt on bolt descends;\nEarth, air, and heaven are wrapt in roaring flame.\n\nAnd when the rifted storm has rolled away,\nAnd stillness reascends her solemn throne,\nRuin looks forth from retrospection's tower,\nAnd memory weeps where desolation reigns.\n\nIt was the end. Dispelled illusion's dream.\nYouth's fond ideals, thunder-stricken, strewn,\nLay level with the dust. But light had come!                      40\nMy soul had cast its fetters and was free.\n\nI slept and dreamed no more; I was awake!\nAnd saw and heard with other eyes and ears,\nWhich taught me things unseen, unheard, before;\nThings new yet old--old as eternity,\nOld e'en to time, though new and strange to me.\n\nI talked with Truth on solemn mountain tops;\nI soared with winged thought the sunlit dome;\nStudied the midnight stars; and when anon\nThe hurrying, far-flung legions of the storm                      50\nIn supermortal might went forth to war,\nWould fain have charioted the charging plain,\nOr spurred the tempest as a battle steed,\nGrasping the volted lightnings as they flew,\nAnd thundering through the mists on things below.\n\nRejoicing in my new-found strength, I gave\nGlory to Him, the Source and Sire of all;\nThat God whom I had neither loved nor feared,\nThat God whom now I worshipt and adored.\nWho girdled me with Light, truth's triple key[3],                 60\nUnlocking what hath been, what yet shall be,\nProbing death's gloom, life's three-fold mystery,\nSolving the secret--Whither, Whence and Why.\n\nOh, wondrous transformation! when with wand\nOf wakening might, that all-uplifting power\nWaved o'er the cross where hung fond hopes impaled,\nWaved o'er the tomb where loved ambitions lay,\nTouched the strewn fragments of my shattered dream,\nBidding the dead arise in bodies new,\nBuilding, on ruined hope, faith's battlement,                     70\nLove's palace, peace-domed, pinnacled in light,\nIn glory greater than earth's grandest dream,\nThan glittering fame's most splendid spectacle;\nIdeal transcending ideality,\nIdeal made real past all reality!\n\nWhose earth-dimmed eye could see what then I saw?\nWhose earth-dulled ear such harmonies could hear?\nWhen the all-searching Spirit tore the veil\nOf things that seem, and showed me things that are.\n\nBeauty, both good and evil--lamp to heaven                        80\nOr lure-light o'er the marshes of despair.\nBeauty, divine--but not divinity;\nNot parent--child of purity and truth;\nNor fount, nor stream, but bubble lost in air,\nNor tree, nor fruit--only a fragrant flower,\nFlung from ambrosial gardens[4], here to grow\nThat life might be the less a wilderness.\n\nBut lo! a loveliness that blooms for aye,\nThat, withering here, is there revivified,\nA loveliness made lovelier evermore;                              90\nThe beauty of the restful and the risen,\nOf Paradise[5] and Glory's higher home.\n\nPure as the mountain monarch's ice-crowned crest,\nPure as the snow-king's mantle, diamond-strewn,\nPure as the cascade's limpid crystalline,\nLeaping from cliff to chasm, the breeze-flung flood\nBlown into spirit spray of dazzling sheen;\nSo pure the love that warmed my boyish breast,\nAnd lit the yearning of my youthful eye.\n\nBut pure love, e'en the purest, may be blind.                    100\nTruth spake--then fell the blindness from Love's eyes[6],\nRevealing life in hues of hopefulness;\nLove's rainbow dream, that only time's vale spans\nTo human vision, widening now till lost\nBeyond the pale peaks of eternity.\n\nHeaven's gold love is, though mixt with earth's alloy--\nDross, that betimes a needful part doth play\nIn nature's wise and true economy.\n\nLove dies not--'t is love's seeming that dissolves,\nLow to its serpent level, native dust,                           110\nA grave unmemoried in lethean ground[7].\nThe while see heaven-born, heaven-aspiring love,\nImmortal spirit of the universe,\nSoaring past sun and stars to worlds unknown!\nHeir to herself, a self-succeeding queen,\nStill regnant on life's throne when life is o'er.\n\nO thou, of beauty[8], loveliest form and phase!\nKindler and keeper of the quenchless flame!\nPartner and peer of human majesty!\nSharing with him life's dual sovereignty,                        120\nWell canst thou wait for thrones and diadems.\nQueen of the future, Eve of coming worlds,\nMother of spirits that shall people stars,\nAnd hail thee empress of a universe!\n\nNo more I deemed of crowning consequence,\nThat mortal clay to mortal eye should shine;\nThat human mites should shout and sing in praise\nEach of the other's midget mightiness--\nA molecule, by atoms glorified!\n\nApple of ashes[9] to the longing lip!                            130\nBrine to the burning throat and thirsting soul!\nPhantom, delusion, misty ghost of fame!\nVoidest and vainest of all vanities!\n\n\"Be not beguiled!\" A vibrant thunder note,\nPealing from clouds that canopied my life,\nThe warning, lightning-winged to purify,\nUp-kindling all the summits of the soul.\n\"Be not beguiled; not what men think and say,\nBut what God sees and knows, is what avails.\n\n\"Who knoweth aught, unknowing of the all?                        140\nUnknowing all, who knoweth perfectly\n'Twixt small and great, 'twixt failure and success,\n'Twixt heights of glory and the gulfs of shame?\nWhat cares eternity for time's decrees?\nDefeat hath oft deserved the conqueror's crown;\nDishonor worn the wreath of victory.\n\n\"Greatness--is it to loom 'mid glittering show?\nGoes power but hand in hand with prominence?\nLargeness or littleness, or high or low,\nHas but to breathe, and straightway he is known.                 150\nWhat speech conceals, the spirit manifests.\n\n\"Fame, place, and title find a fitting use,\nAnd rightfully demand all reverence due.\nBut envy not the empty lot of him\nWho, winning without merit, wins in vain.\n\n\"Greatness, true greatness, mightiness of mind,\nAnd greater greatness, grandeur of the soul,\nTell but one tale--capacity, not place;\nCapacity, whose sire, experience,\nWhose ancestors, innate intelligence,                            160\nOriginal, inborn nobility,\nAs oft in hut as mansion have their home.\n\n\"'Tis not the crowning that creates the king.\nMan's proper place where God hath need of him.\n\n\"Naught can be vain that leadeth unto light;\nStruggle and stress, not plaudit, maketh strong;\nVictor and vanquished equally may win[10],\nClimbing far heights, where fame, eternal fame,\nWhite as the gleaming cloak of Arctic hills,\nRests as a mantle, fadeless, faultless, pure,                    170\nOn loftiest lives, whose snowy peaks, sun-crowned,\nReceive but to dispense their blessedness.\n\n\"Eternal life demands a selfless love.\nHampered by pride, greed, hate, what soul can grow[11]?\nConceive a selfish God! Thou canst not, man!\nThen let it shame thee unto higher things.\nWho strives for self hates other men's success;\nWho seeks God's glory welcomes rivalry.\nSeeking, not gift, but Giver, thou shalt find\nNo sacrifice but changes part for whole.                         180\n\n\"Fare on, full sure that greatest glory comes,\nAnd swiftest growth, from serving humankind.\nToil on, for toil is treasure, thine for aye;\nA pauper he who boasts an empty name.\"\n\nSo spake the Spirit of the Infinite[12].\nThe Messenger and Mind of Holy Twain.\n\nSome men I found embodiments of all\nThe goodness, all the greatness, I had dreamed;\nMen seeming gods, bestowing benefits\nAs suns their beams, as seas and skies their showers.            190\nOthers as dwarfs, as despots, by compare,\nDevoured with greed, consumed with jealousy.\n\nBut truth taught charity, gave me to see,\nAs face to face one sees familiar friend,\nWhy men are not alike in magnitude.\n\nSome souls, than others, have more summits climbed,\nMore light absorbed, more moral might evolved.\nDowered are they with wealth from earlier spheres;\nHence wiser, worthier, than those they lead\nThrough precept's vale, up steep example's height,               200\nTo where love, beauty, wealth, power, glory, reign.\n\nWhile some, innately noble, are borne down\nBy weight of weaknesses inherited,\nBy passions fierce, propensities depraved,\nMalific legacy of centuries,\nThat much of their true worthiness obscures,\nWhile spirit strives with flesh for mastery,\nFor higher culture and for added might.\n\nAnd yet anon such souls effulgent shine--\nAs bursts the April beam through banks of cloud--                210\nIn glory from which envy shades its eyes,\nWhile stands detraction staring, stricken dumb;\nThe glory of a great intelligence,\nWhich mortal mists can dim but for a time.\n\nSpirits, like stars, still differ in degree,\nAnd cannot show an even excellence,\nUnequal in their first nobility.\nGreat tells of greater--littleness of less;\nTime's hills and vales[13] but type eternity.\n\nTruth taught me more, but bade me silent be;                     220\nAnd I had teachers else--toil, prayer, and pain,\nWith days and nights of misery's martyrdom,\nAlone and lorn in grief's Gethsemane:\nTill storm above, and earthquake underneath,\nShook down thought's prison house, broke bolt and bar,\nAnd agony set inspiration free.\n\n'Tis thus the Great Musician tunes the harp\nThat He would strike--strikes thus the harp in tune;\nSweeping with sorrow's hand the quivering strings,\nThat they may cry aloud, and haply sound                         230\nA loftier and more enduring lay.\n\n\n\n\nCANTO TWO\n\nThe Soul of Song[1]\n\n\n  Alone my soul upon a mighty hill,\n  Ancient with lingering snows of vanished years,\n  Where towering forms the templed azure fill,\n  Wooed by the breath of woodland atmospheres;\n  Where Nature, throned in solitude, reveres\n  The God whose glory she doth symbolize,\n  And on these altars, watered by her tears,\n  Spreads far around the fragrant sacrifice\nWhose incense wafts her sweet memorial to the skies.             240\n\n  Here will I rest, where I have loved to roam,\n  From childhood's rose-hued, scarce-remembered day,\n  And found my pensive soul's congenial home\n  Far from the depths where human passions play.\n  Born at their feet, my own have learned to stray\n  Familiar o'er these pathless heights, and feel,\n  As now, the mind assume a loftier sway,\n  Soaring for themes that o'er its summits steal,\nBeyond all thought to reach, all utterance to reveal.\n\n  Here let me linger. O my native hills!                         250\n  Solemn and watchful o'er the silent waste!\n  How great the joy his bounding bosom thrills,\n  Whose steps, aspiring, mar your summits chaste!\n  Language! thy richest robe, thy rarest taste,\n  How clothe description in befitting dress,\n  When halts imagination's wing\u00e9d haste,\n  Awe-spelled in wonder's conscious littleness,\nWhere loom the cloud-crowned monarchs of the wilderness?\n\n  Grim, storm-plumed guardians! Warriors tempest-mailed,\n  Federal with freedom, fortressing her land!                    260\n  Had primal man the sacred garden[2] tilled,\n  'Ere earthly scenes your early vision scanned?\n  In spirit form took ye your titan stand[3],\n  Ere rolled a world-creating fiat forth?\n  Or came ye at convulsion's fierce command,\n  'Mid loud-tongued thunders bursting from the earth,\nThe martial music that proclaimed your war-like birth?\n\n  Vast, voiceless oracles, whose intelligence\n  Sleeps in the caverns of each stony heart,\n  Yet breathes o'er all a boundless eloquence,                   270\n  What wealth historic might your words impart!\n  Lone, looming, hermit of the hills, apart\n  From where thy banded mates in union dwell!\n  A master lyrist seemingly thou art,\n  Chief harper of a host that round thee swell;\nAnd thine the Orphean boon[4], what could withstand thy spell?\n\n  E'en now it whispers from the graven rock,\n  Scribed with the lightning's pen, in sculpture bold,\n  Defying time and tide and tempest shock,\n  Frowning where seas and centuries have rolled.                 280\n  \"Oh were my words[5] thus writ!\" That sage of old,\n  Knew he not well, ye mighty tomes of clay,\n  How firm the trust your flinty page might hold?\n  Have ye not scorned the fiats of decay?\nAre ye not standing now where nations passed away?\n\n  Thrice wondrous things, once thine to wisely scan,\n  Fast as thy frozen snow-crown, still in store,\n  Hadst thou the melting gift[6]--of sovereign man\n  The sunlike glory--mightest thou restore,\n  Till learning's tide o'erwhelmed the shining shore,            290\n  With rich revealings of lost realms that rose\n  And fell like frost-hewn flowers thy face before;\n  Blightings which brought them an untimely close--\nPerchance, of spirit lore, some mystic mine disclose.\n\n  But like the laboring brain that burns to speak\n  Mind's inmost thought, in deepest dungeon pent;\n  Or liker still to inward boiling peak\n  Of fires volcanic, vainly seeking vent\n  Where adamantine bolts and bars prevent;--\n  Thou'rt doomed to utter stillness, and shalt keep              300\n  The burden of thy bearing till is rent\n  Yon heavenly veil, and earth and air and deep\nTell secrets that shall rouse the dead from solemn sleep.\n\n  And must I be as mute, O silent mount!\n  Muse of all Melody, shall I not sing?--\n  Burst these dumb bars, when e'en yon babbling fount\n  May find in every breeze a wafting wing,\n  Afar its lightest murmured word to fling?\n  Where art thou, ancient Soul of Solemn Song?\n  Asleep? Then wake! Wherefore art slumbering?                   310\n  The world hath need of thee, and waiteth long.\nStrike, strike again thy harp, and thrill the listening throng!\n\n  Thus musing, lone upon a beetling brow,\n  Quaffing from unseen fount, those wilds among,\n  The spirit of the sun-kissed torrent flow,\n  Methought some lofty, caverned cliff had rung\n  With echoings of a more than mortal tongue;\n  Though softly clear the mournful cadence broke,\n  As notes from off the weird-toned viol flung.\n  Or was it yon lone cloud that muttering spoke,                 320\nHeralding the storm king's wrathful shout and shivering stroke?\n\n  Amazed I listened. Did I more than dream?\n  Had random word aroused unhoped reply?\n  Or was it sound whose import did but seem?\n  Hark!--for again it rolls along the sky:\n  \"Then question hast thou none? Or none wouldst ply,\n  Save to thy soul in meditative strain,\n  Or heedless winds that wander idly by?\n  So be it; still to me thy purpose plain,\nThy hidden wish revealed, nor thus revealed in vain.\"            330\n\n  While freshening waves of woodland-scented air\n  Widened the spell of that immortal tone;\n  While, as on threshold of a lion's lair,\n  Speechless I stood, as stricken into stone;\n  Methought the sun with lessening splendor shone,\n  As if that wandering cloud obscured his gaze.\n  Then burst the glory from his midday throne!\n  Turning, mine eye beheld, in rapt amaze,\nWhat memory ne'er would lose were life of endless days.\n\n  A stately form, of giant stature tall;                         340\n  Of hoary aspect, venerable and grave;\n  Whose curling locks and beard of copious fall\n  Vied the white foam of ocean's storm-whipt wave.\n  The firm-fixt eye flashed lightnings from its cave;\n  Far-darting penetration's gaze combined\n  With wisdom's milder light. Of study gave\n  Deep evidence that brow by learning lined,\nThought's towering throne, where ruled his realm a monarch\n       mind.\n\n  The spirit's garb--for spirit so he seemed--                   350\n  Fell radiant in many a flowing fold;\n  A robe antique, by modern limners deemed\n  Befitting monk or eremite of old.\n  Head, hands, and feet were bare; the presence bold\n  With majesty, e'en as a god might wear,\n  While condescending to a mortal mould.\n  He spake--the voice no longer thrilled with fear;\nLike some vast organ swell, it charmed, enchained, the ear.\n\n  \"Long have I watched and waited, but no sound\n  Broke the wild stillness of this stern abode,                  360\n  Save thunder's fiery foot-print smote the ground,\n  Or far beneath some torrent's fury flowed;\n  Anon the screaming eagle past me rode;\n  The seeker after gold, with toilsome stride,\n  And eager eye to fix the shining lode,\n  Hath paused and panted on the hill's steep side;\nBut none, for greater things, till now have hither hied.\n\n  \"And thou, O pensive crier in the waste,\n  Invoker of the Voice now visible!\n  Prepared art thou a mystery to taste,                          370\n  Whose fruit is joy or woe ineffable?\n  Pluck not of wisdom's branches bending full,\n  Drink not of that divine philosophy,\n  Save thou canst bravely suffer wrong's misrule,\n  Thy best intent thought ill; save thou canst be\nWhat men deem \"fool,\" real fools despising, pitying thee.\n\n  \"Not all my ministry to lift the gloom\n  Yet hovering o'er this mystic hemisphere.\n  List while I tell, for I am one by whom\n  Future and past as present shall appear.                       380\n  In me behold Messiah's Minister,\n  Ancient of time and of eternity,\n  Spirit of song that moved the Hebrew seer,\n  Voice of the stars[7] ere earth's nativity;\nExile, for ages gone, of mortal minstrelsy.\n\n  \"See now my sacred heritage, the prey\n  Of ribald rhymesters, sensuous, half obscene;\n  Of gloating censors, glad o'er my decay,\n  And deeming all but best I ne'er had been!\n  The body's bard[8] throned, sceptering the scene,              390\n  A groveling worshiper of earth and time.\n  Arise! and with thy soul's celestial sheen,\n  Shame these false meteors, change the ruling chime;\nMy minstrel, I thy muse, sing thou the song sublime!\n\n  \"Sing, poet, sing! but not of new--of old,\n  Of old and new--eternal truth thy theme,\n  That holdeth past and future in her fold,\n  That maketh present but a passing dream,\n  While time and earth and man as trifles seem;\n  That knoweth not of new, or old, or strange;                   400\n  Whose everduring, all-redemptive scheme,\n  Fixt and immutable 'mid worlds of change,\nOn, on, from universe to universe doth range.\n\n  \"Faint not, nor fear, for all shall fare thy way--\n  My way, His way, the Master's, evermore.\n  East shall seem West, rethrown the rising ray,\n  Shining afar from this most ancient shore[9],\n  And man shall rise[10] e'en where man fell before.\n  Fools may deride, may jeer at destiny;\n  They mock to mourn, oblivion earths them o'er;                 410\n  While they that champion truth, by truth shall be\nExalted, e'en in time, to live eternally.\"\n\n  The ancient paused, and, unperceived till then,\n  A wondrous harp his bosom swung before,\n  Such harp as played the shepherd psalmist[11] when\n  A maddening rage his monarch seized and tore,\n  And music's magic quelled satanic power.\n  Seated, his form against the crag reclined,\n  He waved me to his feet, and forth did pour,\n  As pours Niagara on the plaintive wind,                        420\nFloods of majestic song, falling from mind to mind.\n\n  Full tale of wonders told, I may not tell,\n  Though mind be heir to all of mystery;\n  With milk of truth the breasts of wisdom swell,\n  Sufficing past and present infancy.\n  But matching all the modern eye may see\n  With marvels promised to the future sight,\n  'Twas as the shrub unto the sheltering tree,\n  The floating swan unto the eagle's flight,\nThe hillock to the snow-crowned summit, lost in light.           430\n\n  Silent he towered above me, harp in hand,--\n  Was it a dream? Could dream so vivid be?--\n  And with his mantle's fold my forehead fanned.\n  Then leapt to life the flame of poesy!\n  Was it a vision of my destiny?\n  Upon the mount, as erst, I stood alone,\n  And naught was there of muse or minstrelsy;\n  Save that afar still trembled that strange tone,\nAnd something said within: \"That harp is now thine own.\"\n\n\n\n\nCANTO THREE\n\nElect of Elohim[1]\n\n\nSing I a song of aeons gone,                                     440\n    Of life from mystery sprung,\nEre sun, or moon, or rolling stars\n    Their radiance earthward flung;\nEre spirit-winged intelligence\n    Forsook those shining spheres.\nExceeding glory there to gain\n    Through mortal toil and tears.\n\nA song they learn whose lives eterne\n    Transcend yon twinkling night,\nPale Olea's silver beam[2] outsoar,                              450\n    Shinea's golden flight;\nPassing the angel sentries by,\n    Mounting o'er stars and suns,\nTo where the orbs that govern burn,\n    Royal and regnant ones.\n\nDeclare, O Muse of mightier wing,\n    Of loftier lore, than mine!\nWhy God is God, and man may be\n    Both human and divine;\nWhy Sons of God, 'mid sons of men,                               460\n    Unrecognized may dwell,\nSo masked in dense mortality\n    That none their truth can tell.\n\nFrom worlds afar, from heavenmost star,\n    Heard I, or seemed to hear,\nA sweet refrain, as summer rain,\n    A cadence soft and clear.\nA voice, a harp,--Was it the same?--\n    Harping those harps among,\nLeading the lyric universe,                                      470\n    On those high hills of song?\n\nIn solemn council sat the Gods;\n    From Kolob's height supreme,\nCelestial light blazed forth afar\n    O'er countless kokaubeam;\nAnd faintest tinge, the fiery fringe\n    Of that resplendent day,\n'Lumined the dark abysmal realm\n    Where earth in chaos lay.\n\nSilence. That awful hour was one                                 480\n    When thought doth most avail;\nOf worlds unborn the destiny\n    Hung trembling in the scale.\nSilence self-spelled, and there arose,\n    Those kings and priests among,\nA power sublime, than whom appeared\n    None nobler 'mid the throng.\n\nA stature mingling strength with grace,\n    Of meek though godlike mien;\nThe glory of whose countenance                                   490\n    Outshone the noonday sheen.\nWhiter his hair than ocean spray,\n    Or frost of alpine hill.\nHe spake;--attention grew more grave,\n    The stillness e'en more still.\n\n\"Father!\" the voice like music fell,\n    Clear as the murmuring flow\nOf mountain streamlet trickling down\n    From heights of virgin snow.\n\"Father,\" it said, \"since one must die,                          500\n    Thy children to redeem\nFrom spheres all formless now and void,\n    Where pulsing life shall teem;\n\n\"And mighty Michael[3] foremost fall,\n    That mortal man may be;\nAnd chosen saviour Thou must send,\n    Lo, here am I--send me!\nI ask, I seek no recompense,\n    Save that which then were mine;\nMine be the willing sacrifice,                                   510\n    The endless glory Thine!\n\n\"Give me to lead to this lorn world,\n    When wandered from the fold,\nTwelve legions of the noble ones\n    That now Thy face behold;\nTried souls[4], 'mid untried spirits found,\n    That captained these may be,\nAnd crowned the dispensations all\n    With powers of Deity.\n\n\"Who blameless bide the spirit state,                            520\n    Clothe them in mortal clay,\nThe stepping-stone[5] to glories all,\n    If man will God obey,\nBelieving where he cannot see,\n    Till he again shall know,\nAnd answer give, reward receive,\n    For all deeds done below.\n\n\"The love that hath redeemed all worlds[6]\n    All worlds must still redeem;\nBut mercy cannot justice rob--                                   530\n    Or where were Elohim?\nFreedom--man's faith, man's work, God's grace--\n    Must span the great gulf o'er;\nLife, death, the guerdon or the doom,\n    Rejoice we or deplore.\"\n\nStill rang that voice, when sudden rose\n    Aloft a towering form,\nProudly erect as lowering peak\n    'Lumed by the gathering storm;\nA presence bright and beautiful,                                 540\n    With eye of flashing fire,\nA lip whose haughty curl bespoke\n    A sense of inward ire.\n\n\"Send me!\"--coiled 'neath his courtly smile\n    A scarce concealed disdain--\n\"And none shall hence, from heaven to earth,\n    That shall not rise again.\nMy saving plan exception scorns[7].\n    Man's will?--Nay, mine alone.\nAs recompense, I claim the right                                 550\n    To sit on yonder Throne!\"\n\nCeased Lucifer. The breathless hush\n    Resumed and denser grew.\nAll eyes were turned; the general gaze\n    One common magnet drew.\nA moment there was solemn pause--\n    Listened eternity,\nWhile rolled from lips omnipotent\n    The Father's firm decree:\n\n\"Jehovah, thou my Messenger[8]!                                  560\n    Son Ahman, thee I send;\nAnd one shall go thy face before,[9]\n    While twelve thy steps attend.\nAnd many more on that far shore\n    The pathway shall prepare,\nThat I, the first, the last may come,\n    And earth my glory share.\n\n\"After and ere thy going down,\n    An army shall descend--\nThe host of God, and house of him                                570\n    Whom I have named my friend[10].\nThrough him, upon Idumea[11],\n    Shall come, all life to leaven,\nThe guileless ones, the sovereign sons,\n    Throned on the heights of heaven.\n\n\"Go forth, thou Chosen of the Gods,\n    Whose strength shall in thee dwell!\nGo down betime and rescue earth,\n    Dethroning death and hell.\nOn thee alone man's fate depends,                                580\n    The fate of beings all.\nThou shalt not fail, though thou art free--\n    Free, but too great to fall.\n\n\"By arm divine, both mine and thine,\n    The lost thou shalt restore,\nAnd man, redeemed, with God shall be,\n    As God forevermore.\nReturn, and to the parent fold\n    This wandering planet bring[12],\nAnd earth shall hail thee Conqueror,                             590\n    And heaven proclaim thee King.\"\n\n'Twas done. From congregation vast,\n    Tumultuous murmurs rose;\nWaves of conflicting sound, as when\n    Two meeting seas oppose.\n'Twas finished. But the heavens wept;\n    And still their annals tell\nHow one was choice of Elohim,\n    O'er one who fighting fell.\n\n---\n\nA stranger star that came from far                               600\n    To fling its silver ray,\nWhere, cradled in a lowly cave,\n    A lowlier infant lay;\nAnd led by soft sidereal light,\n    The orient sages bring\nBare gifts of gold and frankincense,\n    To greet the homeless King.\n\nO wondrous grace! Will gods go down\n    Thus low that men may rise?\nImprisoned here the Mighty One,                                  610\n    Who reigned in yonder skies?\nHark to that chime!--What tongue sublime\n    Now tells the hour of noon[13]?\nO dying world! art welcoming\n    Life's life--Light's sun and moon[14]?\n\nProclaim Him, prophet harbinger!\n    Make plain the Mightier's way,\nThou sharer of His martyrdom!\n    Elias? Yea and Nay[15].\nThe crescent moon, that knew the Sun,                            620\n    Ere stars had learned to shine[16];\nThe waning moon, that bathed in blood,\n    Ere sank the Sun divine.\n\n\"Glory to God!--good will to man!--\n    Peace, peace!\"--triumphal tone.\n\"Why peace?\" Is discord then no more?\n    Are earth and heaven as one?\nPeace to the soul that serveth Him,\n    The monarch manger-born;\nThere, ruler of unnumbered realms;                               630\n    Here, throneless and forlorn.\n\nHe wandered through the faithless world,\n    A prince in shepherd guise;\nHe called his scattered flock, but few\n    The Voice did recognize;\nFor minds upborne by hollow pride,\n    Or dimmed by sordid lust,\nNe'er look for kings in beggar's garb,\n    For diamonds in the dust.\n\nWept He above a city doomed[17],                                 640\n    Her temple, walls, and towers,\nO'er palaces where recreant priests\n    Usurped unhallowed powers.\n\"I am the way, the life, the light!\"\n    Alas! 'twas heeded not.\nIgnored--nay, mocked--God scorned by man!--\n    And spurned the truth He taught.\n\nO bane of damning unbelief!\n    When, when till now so rife?\nThou stumbling stone, thou barrier 'thwart                       650\n    The gates of endless life!\nO love of self, and mammon lust,\n    Twin portals to despair,\nWhere bigotry, the blinded bat,\n    Flaps through the midnight air!\n\nThrough these, gloom-wrapt Gethsemane[18]!\n    Thy glens of guilty shade\nGrieved o'er the sinless Son of God,\n    By gold-bought kiss betrayed;\nBeheld Him unresisting dragged,                                  660\n    Forsaken, friendless, lone,\nTo halls where dark-browed hatred sat\n    On judgment's lofty throne.\n\nAs sheep before His shearers, dumb,\n    Those patient lips were mute;\nThe clamorous charge of taunting tongues\n    He deigned not to dispute.\nThey smote with cruel palm a face\n    Which felt yet bore the sting;\nThen crowned with thorns His quivering brow,                     670\n    And, mocking, hailed him \"King!\"\n\nTransfixt He hung,--O crime of crimes!--\n    The God whom worlds adore.\n\"Father forgive them!\" Drained the dregs;\n    Immanuel[19]--no more.\nNo more where thunders shook the earth,\n    Where lightnings tore the gloom,\nSaw that unconquered Spirit spurn\n    The shackles of the tomb.\n\nFar-flaming might, a sword of light,                             680\n    A falchion from its sheath,\nIt cleft the realms of darkness, and\n    Dissolved the bands of death.\nHell's dungeons burst, wide open swung\n    The everlasting bars,\nWhereby the ransomed soul shall win\n    Those heights beyond the stars.\n\n\n\n\nCANTO FOUR\n\nNight And The Wilderness[1]\n\n\nA World o'ershadowed by an Eagle's wings[2],\nFrom Scythian snows to hot Hamitic sands,\nFrom Ganges on to Tiber and the Thames.                          690\n\nWhere goeth forth, unwittingly the tool\nOf Truth Eterne, a pathway to prepare,\nThe law and legion of imperial Rome,\nMighty to crush and to consolidate,\nHumbling the hard, the haughty, making way\nFor peace to flow[3] wider than war can wound\nServant unknowingly of Him she slew,\nIn pandering to Judah's jealousy.\n\nVictim now Victor, conqueror captive led,\nDebtor to justice, darkness serving day,                         700\nUpon her knotted neck Jehovah's heel,\nHer iron hand the Nazarene's defense,\nHolding in quell the hierarchal hate,\nCurbing the cruel wrath of Greek and Jew;\nIsrael from Israel's madness made secure--\nLamb from the Lion, by the She-Wolf's might[4].\n\nEre rose the Iron-Limbed[5], all conquering,\nThroned on the wreck of empires earlier born,\nWrought well for Him the brazen loin of power,\nThe pard-like phalanx, swift, invincible,                        710\nSpreading the glories of a sapient tongue,\nThe wing whereon a higher wisdom flew,\nTill teemed, of Aryan clans, the Asian kin[6],\nSeedlings of Japheth, sire of the Gentile world.\nSoul-widening word, broad-sown by Grecia's hand,\nTo blossom on a furrowed heathen ground.\n\nServant, erstwhile, the silver-breasted realm,\nKingdom of Kurush[7], shepherd of the King,\nWhose sword, that gave the Jew deliverance,\nTo golden Babylon the guillotine.                                720\n\nWhoe'er hath swayed, or yet shall sway, the world,\nBy tongue or pen, by sword or sceptered rule,\nHath served, or yet shall serve, the sovereign aim\nOf Him who wills the welfare of mankind;\nFor or against, promoting still His plan,\nHelping, not hindering, a conquering Cause.\n\nGone the great Sun--set but to rise again,\nMore glorious from a night of martyrdom;\nSet here to rise on realms and times untold;\nAll worlds, God's lofty vineyards[8], visiting.                  730\n\nLinger the spirit Moon and speaking Stars[9],\nCrowning with light the Woman Wonderful[10].\n\nFair as the morn, though tearful as the eve;\nRisen as from the rocky sepulchre,\nWhere slept betimes the body of her Lord;\nClothed, crowned, and shod, with glory's symboling[11];\nEre winging to the vast invisible,\nReturning to the restful wilderness,\nShe bides to hope, to labor, and endure,\nAll depths, all heights, with Him inheriting.                    740\n\nHenceforth with her another Comforter,\nVicegerent[12] of the vanished Majesty,\nOf heavenly Three, the unembodied One[13],\nProceeding from the presence of the Sire,\nTo manifest the meaning of the Son;\nGiver of gifts from Him, the glory-crowned,\nFountain of memory and of prophecy.\n\nAfter and ere,[14] Messiah's Minister,\nCreative hand, omnific arm of God;\nHolder with Christ of resurrection's key,                        750\nThe quickener of the living and the dead.\nLamp of the worlds, life of the universe,\nEternal spring of energy divine--\nLife, Light, and Love, magnetic mystery,\nWhereby all things upheld and heavenward drawn.\n\nProphet still pleading[15] in the wilderness,\nThe promise of a perfect yet to come;\nProclaimer of the heavenly commonweal,\nKingdom upon and yet not of the earth,\nWhose portal none can enter, none can see,                       760\nSave born anew--born of a dual birth,\nBy mystic fatherhood and motherhood\nBegotten sons and daughters unto God,\nWhose Spirit, omnipresent, immanent,\nUnwearied, strives by countless ministries,\nBy might of word, by miracle of deed,\nMankind to win, wooing while hope remains.\n\nHenceforth with her that holy gift and guide,\nTruth's high revealer and interpreter;\nHenceforth with her the Father and the Son,                      770\nAbsent, yet present by the Comforter;\nOf great lights twain, the lesser, ruling night,\nMoon to that Sun, whose realm the rounded Day.\n\nResplendent night, while flame those fluent stars[16],\nThat still a spotless brow bediadem;\nCircling forever round their central Light,\nAnd, Him withdrawn, repeating from afar,\nAnd gladdening with His rays a gloom-hung world.\n\nAs set that Sun, sinking in seas of blood,\nSinking to soar above a mightier morrow,                         780\nFollow the lingering stars, save haply one[17],\nThrough mystic night of ages sparkling lone,\nAnd speaking in high splendor things to come.\nMost lustrous of the living lamps of God,\n'Mid human lights, divinely luminant.\nRarest of twelve, remaining oracle,\nReserved unto a wondrous destiny;\nPilot of peoples, nations, tribes and tongues,\nLeading the lost[18] ones from captivity.\nBeloved of Love--life's King, death's Conqueror,                 790\nTarrying by will of Him through troubled time,\nLighting the way unto eternity.\n\nAnd thou, e'en thou, O Woman Wonderful!\nSafe for a season from the She-Wolf's maw,\nFar borne, east, west, on power's imperial wings,\nNourished 'neath Caesar's shield, till Caesar's sword\nHath turned upon and made thee desolate.\nThou too must pass--not perish--in thy time.\nBetrayed to foes without, by false within,\nE'en as thy Lord thou sufferest martyrdom.                       800\n\nBut what avails to baffle Him or bind?\nVain, dragon, vain thy deluge of deceit,\nThy flood of lies, thou false one from of old!\nVain, wrath of devils and of men combined,\nBent to defile the sacred Bride of Christ.\nTriumphs the Man-Child[19], heaven now summons home;\nTriumphs the Woman in the wilderness,\n'Scaping the jaws, the hungering gates of hell,\nThat 'gainst the mortal part alone prevail;\nBody, not spirit, crushed and all o'ercome.                      810\n\nThroned upon higher worlds, she reigneth still;\nAnd here shall rise unto the regnant place,\nWhen rolls the stone upon the image doomed,\nWhen God hath fanned with fire His threshing floor.\n\nTill then proud Japheth sways[20], while Jacob mourns,\nFainting 'neath yokes and fardels, prostrate, prone,\nWith Judah undermost, the last of all\nThe trampled tribes to taste of liberty.\nHaply ordained a lesser power to wield,\nAntaeus-like[21], from touching of the ground;                   820\nBent, curst, yet clutching, and by might of gold\nConquering his dust-adoring conqueror[22].\n\nFor God, through all, remembers Abraham,\nOrdained of old His lineal house to be.\nCame not the Christ their covenant to fulfill?\nWho but an Israel might offer Him?\nWhose hand than Judah's might Jehovah slay?\n\"His blood be on our head\"--Ay, rests it there!\nWeightier than worlds by that high death redeemed.\n\nWorld-wandering Saul! Was this thy symboling:                    830\nThe Jew struck blind that Gentile hosts might see[23]?\n\nPredestined Israel, martyred, immolate[24],\nThat nations, blood-besprent, might look and live;\nA burden-bearer for the universe,\nOutcast and homeless for humanity,\nDescending like his Lord all else below,\nAnd yet with Him to rise all else above,\nExtremes of woe and weal encompassing,\nWisdom by sweet and bitter made more wise.\n\nFrom blight springs blessing, and from darkness day;             840\nE'en Canaan's neck from 'neath the yoke[25] shall come.\nJapheth shall feel the Spirit minister,\nAnd Jacob see and hear his risen Lord[26].\n\nDeparted now the Woman Wonderful,\nGone with the spirit gift and guiding power;\nO'ercome, world-conquered, sinks degenerate\nThe washed one to his wallowing in the mire[27];\nA drowsy dreamer of the self-same dreams\nDispelled erewhile by lightnings of her eye;\n\nThe heaven-lit torch[28] that made the pathway plain             850\nO'er rugged mount, through mazy catacomb,\nNow dimmed with incense from Diana's shrine[29],\nAnd dashed in pieces 'gainst a pagan throne,\nWhere prematurely changed was cross for crown,\nAnd Christ's flock fleeced by shearing compromise[30].\n\nGod still with man, though not with man's misrule;\nStill with the just, though Christian-pagan turn\nHis prurient ear to fables, from the truth,\nAnd, virtueless as Judah's pharisee,\nAnd graceless as Iscariot, self-hung,                            860\nParts in the midst, as wide as East from West[31],\nFalse church and faithless empire, faction-torn,\nTwain as the imaged legs of Babel's dream,\nA split colossus, fallen 'twixt Greece and Rome.\n\nGod still with man, though not with man's misrule,\nNever with thee, daughter of force and fraud,\nMother of guile--thy refuge and thy shame!\nNever with thee, thou wanton by the way,\nRoaming tradition's tangled wilderness,\nLost in a night that seemeth to thee day;                        870\nIn crooked paths that fain would straight appear;\nWarming thy withered fingers o'er the coals\nAlive 'mid ashes of the ancient fires,\nWhere She was wont[32] to kindle faith, hope, love,\nAnd flash the beacon o'er a wandering world.\nThere holding to thy heart an empty urn,\nThere cherishing a name, a memory,\nMumbling vain prayers, \"Lord, Lord,\" protesting still,\nAnd still forgetful of thy Lord's command!\n\nNay, not with thee, thou crimson courtesan[33],                  880\nRobed in the horrid hue of countless crimes!\nFierce dragon's maw, thrice-cruel murderess,\nThy hands a-reek with blood of innocence,\nWith blood of prophets, blood of priests and kings,\nWhose martyred souls sue vengeance, judgment-sworn!\nVengeance on thee, thou slaughterer of saints,\nVengeance on him, thy sceptered paramour,\nWhose princes ten (while Mammon's host shall wail),\nLoathing where once they loved all lustfully,\nAnd lived, as thou hast lived, deliciously,                      890\nWhen found no more God's wheat 'mid Satan's tares,\nWhen thou art saltless, saintless, savorless,\nWhen thou art ripened unto rottenness,\nShall give thy crumbling body to be burned.\n\nNay, Anti-Christ, presuming tyranny,\nNever with thee, usurping power of sin!\nPlotting to sway Jehovah's sovereignty,\nTo rear thy throne where His alone shall stand;\nPerdition, warring 'gainst the Saints of God,\nAnd overcoming till the Judgment sits[34],                       900\nWhen swift-winged morn shall overtake the night,\nAnd glory lift the gloom[35] of centuries.\n\nMeanwhile the mission of the Moonlike One[36],\nBrooding above the waters of the world,\nStronger than storms, mightier than wind or wave,\nMoving on mortal seas, on human souls;\nDynamic impulse of Divinity,\nImpelling to all action[37] wise, sublime.\n\nThat high Ambassador of Elohim,\nThe Spirit Messenger Omnipotent,                                 910\nDeclare His goings-forth, His sendings tell.\n\nYe patriarchs and prophets of old time!\nYe seers and bards of sacred Israel!\nElect of God, earth-wandering witnesses,\nSowers on goodly and on stony ground!\nSouls mercy-sent, man's erring steps to win\nFrom folly's paths of wickedness and strife,\nTo wisdom's way of purity and peace!\nShepherds to fold and feed a wolf-torn flock,\nHolding the hallowed keys that loose and bind!                   920\nTell me--are ye alone truth's harbingers?\nAre ye alone forerunners of the Light?\n\nNay, for as kings and conquerors they come;\nAnon, as champions of democracy;\nFounders of faiths and stern iconoclasts;\nSword, tongue and pen of progress and reform.\nThe fountain lights of literature, whose rays\nSpill their white splendor on the hills of fame;\nMasters of melody, whose strains awake\nThe slumbering memories of eternity;                             930\nPilgrims to continents and climes unknown,\nUncurtained for the play of liberty,\nNow nearing the finale of her dreams,\nDreams that shall waken to reality;\nWaste-winners; probers of the polar way;\nInvention's wizards, wielding magic might--\nLaunching fleet words on atmospheric wave,\nCleaving with bird-like wing the shoreless blue,\nOutspeeding speed, outblazing brilliancy,\nThrilling the world with lightning's vivid wand,                 940\nRuling all realms with scintillating sway;\nSages in art, in science past profound,\nSubduing matter and exploring mind,\nSounding the depths of psychic mystery,\nScaling thought's pinnacles, that pierce the night,\nTo greet the early glintings of the morn.\nThese also are the mighty, kin to those,\nDivinest of Jehovah's messengers.\nEach hath his freedom, and succeeds or fails,\nBut all subserve the Will Omnipotent.                            950\n\nWhat though some wayward son of Deity[38],\nBuilder, o'erthrower, of imperial thrones,\nIn wrongful act of rightful agency,\nHere drench with blood, here pave with shattered bones,\nTo heights of crumbling power and futile fame!\nIs God then mocked? Made void His vast design?\nCreator foiled by creature? Vain the fear!\nSpeeds ne'er to earth a spoiler of His plan,\nNor spares His rod a recreant messenger.\n\nWhate'er betide, the soul that sins atones:                      960\nThe grievous sceptre and the slaughtering sword,\nThe bloodstained ax, the gory guillotine,\nThe tyrant wrong, the tyrant-trampling right,\nJoin to make justice of the direst doom.\n\nAll oracles of light, all arms of power,\nPreparers of the way one face before;\nTheir strength but part of His omnipotence,\nTheir fault God-given lest man be deified,\nAnd pride in him dethrone humility.\n\nDeclare His truth, His generations tell,                         970\nO'er whom the many marveled, some to say\nElias, slain of Herod, lives again;\nWhile some said Jeremias[39]. Who say ye,\nMan-hated, though God-missioned ministers,\nUnctioned with fire, anointed from on High!\nGuardians yet watchful o'er the widening fold!\nWho say ye was your Master, Teacher, Friend?\n\n\"Word that was God, is God, and shall be aye;\nSire by the spirit, and by flesh the Son;\nIn glory with the Father ere the world,                          980\nAnd now with that same glory glorified.\nImage and likeness of creation's cause,\nMirror and model of humanity[40],\nOf man the parent and the prototype.\nLover of light, hating and righting wrong;\nAnointed Lord of Lords and Sire 'mid Sons;\nThe Sole-begotten, He that doeth here\nAll He hath seen erstwhile the Father do.\nElias? Nay, Messiah, Saviour, King,\nThat Greater whom Elias said would come.\"                        990\n\nSufficeth it. What now, ye learned ones,\nSchool-taught, self-sent, man-missioned ministers,\nCreators of a vain divinity!\nDaring the thunders of the decalogue,\nDisputing Moses, Christ, and prophets all,\nGird up your loins and answer--What of God?\n\"God?--Mystery incomprehensible[41];\nAll things made He from nothing\"--Hold, enough!\nNight and gross darkness--darken it no more.\n\nYet give to man his meed. Hath he not kept,                     1000\nAlbeit in empty urn, the Name of Names,\nAnd toiled and suffered sore transmitting it\nFrom sire to son through shaded centuries?\nMessiah's coming did he not proclaim?\nAnd, trodden yet beneath oppression's heel,\nHoards he not still the precious prophecy?\nThe Jew, the Christian, each hath played his part,\nEach as a star[42] hath heralded a morn.\n\nAnd what of him, the fierce iconoclast,\nAgnostic, doubting or denying all,                              1010\nOfttimes in hate and horrid ribaldry?\nMaintains he not life's equilibrium,\nA tempering shadow to the torrid beam,\nA brake upon the wheel of bigotry,\nA jet to cool fanaticism's flame,\nUnquelled, devouring, devastating all?\nAn angel, past control, a demon were.\nBold unbelief, reform's rough pioneer,\nUnwittingly a warrior for the Cross,\nA weapon for the right[43] he ridicules.                        1020\n\nGod's perfect plan an ocean is, where range\nAs minnows, monsters, of the wide wave-realm,\nMen's causes, creeds, and systems manifold;\nFree as the will of Him who freedom willed,\nWithin the bounds ordained by law divine.\nE'en Lucifer, arch-foe to liberty,\nIs free, though fettered to his fallen sphere;\nEnticing, tempting all, compelling none,\nAnd aiding aye the Power he fain would foil.\n\nAll human schemes, all hell's conspiracies,                     1030\nAll chance, all accident, all agency,\nAll loves, hates, hopes, despairs, and blasphemies,\nAll rights, all wrongs, to one high purpose bend.\nNo backward glance gives progress. Upward! on!\nLife triumphs ever in death's victory.\nDross hath its ministry no less than gold;\nAnd honest, erring zeal, wherever found,\nHath wrought more good than ill to humankind.\n\nBut morn must rise, and night dismiss her stars;\nAnd ocean summon home his seas and streams;                     1040\nAnd truth the perfect, truth the part fulfill,\nAs knowledge faith, as history prophecy.\n\nDay from his quiver drew a shining shaft,\nAnd 'thwart the night the flaming arrow flew.\nHark, to a cry that cleaves the wilderness,\nPealing the clarion prelude to the dawn!\n\n\n\n\nCANTO FIVE\n\nThe Messenger of Morn[1]\n\n\n\"Wake, slumbering world! Vain dreamer, dream no more!\nThe shadows lift, and o'er night's dusky beach\nRipple the white waves of morn. Awake! Arise!\n\n\"Ocean of dispensations--rivers, rills,                         1050\nRoll to your source! End, to thine origin!\nAnd Israel, to the rock whence ye were hewn[2]!\nFor He that scattered, gathereth His flock,\nHis ancient flock, and plants their pilgrim feet\nOn Joseph's mountain top and Judah's plains;\nRecalls the children of the covenant\nFrom long dispersion o'er the Gentile world,\nMingling their spirits with the mystic sea,\nWhich sent them forth as freshening showers to save\nThe parched and withered wastes of unbelief[3].                 1060\nJapheth! thy planet pales[4], it sinks, it sets;\nHenceforth 't is Jacob's star must rise and reign.\n\n\"Daughter of Zion! be thou comforted,\nAnd wash from thy wan cheek all trace of tears.\nGone are the days of dole and widowhood,\nThe days of barrenness that brought thee scorn;\nThy wilderness now weds, thy desert blooms.\n\n\"Rejoice, Jerusalem! thou art redeemed;\nAgain thy temple and thy towers arise;\nHeard is the harp of David in thy halls;                        1070\nGreater than Solomon's thy wisdom shines.\n\n\"From spirit heights, where thou art beautiful,\nLamp of the nations, send thy light afar!\nTake on thy new name--One and Pure in Heart!\nFor thou shalt see thy God, His presence thine.\n\n\"Time, mighty daughter of Eternity!\nMother of centuries[5]--seventy, seven-crowned!\nAssemble now thy children at thy side,\nAnd 'ere thou diest teach them to be one[6].\nLink to its link rebind the broken chain                        1080\nOf dispensations, glories, keys, and powers,\nFrom Adam's fall unto Messiah's reign;\nA thousand years of rest, a day with God,\nWhile Shiloh reigns[7] and Kolob once revolves.\n\n\"Six days thou, Earth, hast labored[8], and the seventh,\nThy sabbath, comes apace! Night's sceptre wanes,\nAnd in the East the silvery Messenger\nGives silent token of the golden Dawn.\n\n\"Once more the ancient tidings[9] among men!\nOnce more the sign and seal of heavenly power!                  1090\nRenewal of an endless covenant,\nElias, restitution, unity!\n\n\"His burden! Hear it, nations! Hear it, isles!\nEre falls an hour, night's darkest hour of doom.\nThe trial ends, the judgment now begins.\nOut, out of her, my people, saith your God!\"\n\n---\n\nWho towers aloft, as mountain girt with hills,\nAmid the strength of Ephraim's stalwart sons,\nTo trumpet thus the closing acts of time?\nSpeak, oracle, what sayest thou of thyself?                     1100\nWho art thou, man of might and majesty?\n\n\"Would God I might but tell thee who I am!\nWould God I might but tell thee what I know[10]!\"\n\nThen was he of the Mighty--one with those\nDescended from the Empire of the Sun,\nAdown the glowing stairway of the stars?\nRegnant and ruling ere they left the realms\nOf life supernal, left their sovereign thrones,\nTo wander oft as outcasts of mankind,\nUnknown, unhonored, e'en like One who came                      1110\nUnto His own, by them spat on and spurned?\nAvails it aught, their name or nation here?\nTheir state and standing there, the vital tale.\n\nPeers of that Empire, nobles of the skies,\nThe sceptered satraps of the King of Kings,\nThe royal retinue of Him who reigns\nFirst-born of many brethren--Gibborim[11],\nGreat ones worthy the Word[12] that was to come;\nForeknown, elect, predestined, preordained,\nSons of the Gods, and saviours of mankind,                      1120\nBuilding the highway for Messiah's feet,\nAnd wheresoe'er He fareth following.\n\nI saw in vision such a one descend,\nAnd garb him in a guise of common clay;\nHis glory veiling from the gaze of all,\nWho wist not that a great one walked with men;\nNor knew it then the soul incarnate there,\nBetwixt the temporal and spirit spheres\nSo dense forgetfulness doth intervene;\nYet learned his truth betime by angel tongues,                  1130\nBy voice of God, by heavenly whisperings.\n\nBut who remains his mystery to solve,\nHis letter to unlock with spirit key?\nThe veil to lift by death and silence thrown\nO'er all the splendors of that life sublime?\n\nSound, Angel, sound! thou fifth of seven[13], ordained\nTo usher in the world-millennials,\nTo storm the dungeon doors of history,\nAnd liberate the thoughts and deeds of men!\nSound, trump of God! Voice of a thousand years,                 1140\nCall of the Christ--His clear familiar tone,\nHeard in the ages and the aeons past,\nTold to the times and worlds that went before;\nCall of the Spirit, answered by the blood,\nVoice of the Shepherd, by the sheep well known.\n\nA living prophet unto dying time,\nHeralding the Dispensation of the End,\nWhen Christ once more His vineyard comes to prune,\nWhen potent weak confound the puny strong,\nThreshing the nations by the Spirit's power,                    1150\nRending the kingdoms with a word of flame;\nThat here the Father's work may crown the Son's,\nAnd earth be joined a holy bride to heaven,\nA queen 'mid queens, crowned, throned, and glorified.\n\nWherefore came down this angel of the dawn,\nIn strength divine, a stirring role to play\nIn time's tense tragedy, whose acts are seven.\nHis part to fell the false, replant the true,\nTo clear away the wreckage of the past,\nThe ashes of its dead and dying creeds,                         1160\nAnd kindle newly on earth's ancient shrine\nThe Light that points to Life unerringly;\nCrowning what has been with what now must be;\nA mighty still bespeaking mightier.\n\n---\n\nEarth rose from wintry sleep[14], baptized and cleansed,\nAnd on her tranquil brow, that seemed to feel\nThe holy and confirming hand of Heaven,\nThe warm light in a wealth of comfort streamed;\nNature's great floor green-carpeting anew\nFor some glad change, some joyful happening,                    1170\nTold in the countless caroling of birds,\nGilding the foliage, glorying the flowers,\nMirroring mingled hues of earth and sky.\n\nGlad happening, in sooth, for ne'er before,\nSince burst the heavens when Judah's star-lit hills\nHeard angel choristers peal joy's refrain\nAbove the mangered Babe of Bethlehem,\nHad earth such scene beheld, as now within\nThe bosom of a sylvan solitude,\nHard by the borders of a humble home,                           1180\nUpon that fair and fateful morn was played.\n\nPlayers, immortal twain and mortal one,\nStanding but fourteen steps upon life's stair,\nAn unlearned boy, thinker of thoughts profound,\nBoy and yet man, dreamer of lofty dreams.\n\nNot solemn, save betimes, when hovered near\nSome wing\u00e9d inspiration from far worlds,\nSome great idea's all-subduing spell--\nHis heart grew humbler then, his look more grave;\nNot melancholy--mirthful, loving life,                          1190\nAnd brimming o'er with health and wholesome glee.\nA stalwart spirit in a sturdy frame,\nMaturing unto future mightiness.\n\nBowing to God, yet bending to no creed,\nAdoring not a loveless deity,\nThat saved or damned regardless of desert,\nNe'er reckoning the good or evil done;\nLoving and worshipping the God of love,\nThe gracious God of reason and of right,\nLong-suffering and just and merciful,                           1200\nMeting to every work fit recompense,\nYet giving more, far more, than merit's claim;\nBowing to Him, but not to man-made gods,\nAnd shunning shameful strife where peace should dwell,\nHe holds aloof from those degenerate sects,\nBewildering Babel of conflicting creeds,\nAnd pondering the apostolic line,\n\"Let any lacking wisdom, wisdom ask,\nAnd God will freely give, upbraiding none,\"\nHe puts the promise to the utter test.                          1210\n\nWhat pen can paint the marvel that befell?\nWhat tongue the wondrous miracle portray?\nThan theirs, the Vision's own, what voice proclaim\nWhose dual presence[15] dimmed the noonday beam,\nCommuning with him there, as friend with friend,\nAnd giving to that prayer reply of peace?\n\nTell how, as Moses on the unknown mount[16],\nFrom whom in rage fled baffled Lucifer,\nWho fain had guised him as the Son of God,\nTo win the worship of that prophet pure--                       1220\nTell how with gloom he strove ere glory dawned,\nAnd black despair met bright deliverance.\nTell how in heart of that sweet solitude,\nWithin the silent grove, sequestered shade,\nWhile spirit hosts unseen spectators stood,\nWatching the simple scene's sublimity,\nEternity high converse held with time;\nTime, parent of the hovering centuries,\nMother of dispensations, travailing,\nAnd bringing forth her last and mightiest child;                1230\nHeaven's awful Sire, through Him both Sire and Son,\nThere blazoning the beginning of the end.\n\nWane the swift years; the boy a youth now grown;\nAnd on his brow, woe-carved, a world of care.\nBending, an Atlas,[17] 'neath the titan's load,\nDaily he climbs the hill of sacrifice,\nViewing from far the mount of martyrdom.\n\nNor marvel at his lot; hath he not told--\nA crime man ne'er forgave in fellowman--\nTold the wise world that God hath spoke again?                  1240\n\n\"'Twas from below!\" Thus bigotry in rage.\n\"Nay, from above,\" the meek though firm reply.\n\"No vision is there now--the time is past.\"\n\"But I have seen,\" affirms truth's constancy.\n\"God is a mystery, unknowable.\"\n\"God is a man--I saw Him, talked with Him.\"\n\"Man?\" \"Ay, of holiness--Exalted Man[18].\"\n\nA strife of words, of warring tongues, now waged,\nAnd weapons vied with words the truth to slay;\nNor truth alone, but her brave oracle,                          1250\nA boy, by men, by neighborhoods, oppressed.\n\nStill through his soul the solemn warning rang,\nStill from his mouth the startling message flamed:\n\"No church the Christ's. None, therefore, can I join.\nAll sects and creeds have wandered from the way.\nPriestcraft in lieu of Priesthood sits enthroned.\nDead forms deny the power of godliness.\nMen worship with their lips, their hearts afar.\nNone serve acceptably in sight of heaven.\nWherefore a work of wonder shall be wrought,                    1260\nAnd perish all the wisdom of the wise[19].\"\n\nThe wrangling sects forgave--well nigh forgot\nTheir former feuds and fears and jealousies;\nAnd, joining hands, as Pilate Herod joined,\nOne guilty day when God stood man-condemned,\nIn friendly reconcilement's cordial clasp,\nThey doomed to death and hell \"this heresy.\"\nNone sought, from \"Satan's wile,\" a soul's reclaim,\nBut all were bent his humble name to blast;\nAnd pious, would-be murder led the van                          1270\nOf common hatred and hostility.\n\nBut Truth, thou mother of the living thought,\nThe deathless word, the everduring deed!\nWhat puny hand thy giant arm can stay?\nWhen crushed or backward held, thine hour beyond?\nCan bigot frown or tyrant fetter quell\nThy high revolt, O Light Omnipotent!\nWhen God would speak with man, who tells Him nay?\nCan hell prevent when heaven on earth would smile?\n\nPillowed in prayerful thought the wakeful seer.                 1280\nWithout, broods darkness o'er a dreaming world;\nWithin, an angel's face turns night to day:\n\"A messenger from God[20] to thee I come;\nThy sins are pardoned through thy penitence;\nHenceforward heard in every creed and clime\nThe good and evil tongues that trump thy fame.\nBehold!\"\n\n    Amazement now fresh wonder views;\nAnd while enwrapt, as wave-like visions roll\nTheir spirit splendors on that gifted gaze,                     1290\nIn words akin to these the tale tells on:\n\n\"A slumbering secret hides in yonder hill,\nGraven on gold, in characters unknown--\nUnknown to thee, but known to me and mine,\nThe language of my people, ages gone.\nBeside the sacred volume, buried there\nAt His behest who gave my sire command,\nThe seer-stones, Urim, Thummim, named of old,\nWhereby thou shalt dispel the mystery\nThat hangs above this heaven-favored land,                      1300\nAnd Joseph, speaking from the dust, shall join\nWith Judah, page to page[21], God's grace to tell.\n\n\"But be aware, lest Mammon's charm allure,\nAnd tempt from truer wealth that shines within.\nMore than the lamp the light--be this thy quest:\nSeek thou the gold that gilds eternity.\n\n\"The winter of the Gentile reign is o'er,\nAnd Israel's springtime putteth forth its leaves.\nFruit planted in the gardens of the past\nHath ripened and is ready for the fall[22].                     1310\n\n\"Elias comes[23], Messiah's Messenger,\nGod's host to summon, and His house to save--\nFirst by persuasion's pleading; that contemned,\nBy voice of wrath and stroke of violence.\nHe speaks--the mountains kneel, the valleys rise;\nRolls to the north the land-dividing wave;\nEquality--nay, justice, holds the helm,\nEach hath his own, the lost lamb finds the fold.\nElias comes--'tis restitution's reign,\nAnd order hurls disorder from the throne.                       1320\n\n\"War sheathes his fangs, aloft on fearless wing\nPeace broods above a restful universe;\nA common faith and interest unite,\nBut conscience still her fullest freedom[24] sees.\nWider than Church extends the Kingdom's bound:\nThe law from Zion, and the royal word,\nThe Monarch's edict, from Jerusalem;\nA centralized diffusion's balanced sway,\nGod's might, man's right, in equilibrium.\n\n\"Babel no more--stilled all her strifeful tongues;              1330\nThe primal language[25] o'er the world prevails;\nAnd all is found again as at the first,\nWhile ransomed hosts, rejoicing, shout and sing:\nThe Lord His ancient people hath redeemed;\nThe Lord hath gathered all things into one;\nAnd earth becomes a heaven, for she is clothed\nIn garments as the glory of His light\nWho reigneth in the midst, Life's Majesty.\n\n\"But ere it break, that bright millennial day,\nThere falls a nightlier hour than night hath known,             1340\nWhen sun shall frown, moon blush, when dizzy stars,\nDrunken with fumes of man's iniquity,\nShall hurl them headlong from their sparkling thrones,\nAnd grovel darkly in the deep abyss;\nWhile heaven shall tremble as if palsy-struck,\nEarth as an aspen shaken in the wind.\nMen's hearts shall fail, and where be safety found?\nFor tribulations till that hour unknown,\nSave in the feeble typings of the past,\nTerrors of famine, fire, and pestilence,                        1350\nTerrors of whirling wind and whelming wave,\nAllied to horrors strange as manifold,\nShall stalk abroad to humble humankind,\nTo lift the lowly and abase the proud,\nTo straight the crooked and make smooth the crude,\nJehovah's awful pathway to prepare--\nJehovah, He who cometh to his own,\nAnd by His own at last is recognized.\n\n\"No more a lowly Lamb, to slaughter led;\nA Lion in his risen majesty--                                   1360\nLion and Lamb, for gentleness and might,\nMercy and justice, there go hand in hand.\n\n\"But first, the sickle in the ripened grain,\nReaping where faith is found, while hope endures,\nDrawing the Gentile unto Israel's God,\nAnd gathering the strewn of Abraham.\n\n\"Wells truth from earth, pours righteousness from heaven,\nTill wisdom's waters inundate the world.\nBestirred the wave by angel trumpets blown,\nWafting the chosen seed to safety's strand,                     1370\nWinning the West ere yet the East be spoiled.\n\n\"Elijah comes--Elijah, he whose rays\nBespeak the Lord of Glory, from whose light\nAll splendors, paling, hide their tapers dim.\nHe comes the world to reap, the vineyard prune,\nThe wheat to garner, and the tares to burn;\nHe comes, his face a furnace, melting pride,\nConsuming wickedness and cleansing worth.\nHe comes the hearts of sons and sires to turn,\nTo plant anew the promises of old,                              1380\nBinding the present to the parent past,\nPart unto whole, time to eternity.\nHe comes the priestly fulness to unfold,\nThe capstone of life's temple here to lay.\nHe comes lest man be taken unaware,\nAnd laggard earth be smitten with a curse.\n\n\"Hark to that prophet--outstretched Arm of God,\nWho comes the ancient order to restore;\nAnd list to him who leads, as Moses led,\nThe gathered house and host of Abraham!\"                        1390\n\nThrice through the night the radiant messenger\nIn burning words breathed forth the marvel told;\nTill memory's page, as traced with pen of fire,\nGlowed with each utterance ineffable.\n\nAnd on the morrow stood the sacred twain--\nMortal, immortal, present linked with past--\nAbove the spot where slumbering truth reposed;\nNot to be wakened yet till autumns four\nHad rained their dews upon its resting-place.\n\nMeanwhile the unschooled prophet, angel-taught,                 1400\nIn prayer and patience disciplined his soul;\nAnd visiting yearly that revealing mount,\nLearned from its lips a story of the past,\nAffirmed in full when risen truth revealed\nThe pent-up secret of the centuries.\n\nWords of the angel, Ramah's sentinel,\nCustodian of Cumorah's[26] archive old:\n\n\n\n\nCANTO SIX\n\nFrom Out The Dust[1]\n\n\n  Jehovah's land--thy country--once mine own,\n  A sacred soil, a consecrated shore,\n  Where cometh up the universal Throne,                         1410\n  Dominion that endureth evermore.\n  Whose God, with gods, in solemn council swore\n  No tyrant should this chosen land defile;\n  And nations here, that for a season bore\n  The palm of power, must righteous be[2] the while,\nOr ruin's avalanche ruin on ruin pile.\n\n  Though not till brimmed with guilt their cup of crime,\n  Ripened the harvest of iniquity.\n  To races, nations, men, there is a time\n  To come and go, as wisdom shall decree,--                     1420\n  Wisdom supreme, Tongue of Eternity.\n  But strikes the hour as men and nations will.\n  Unfettered in their choice of destiny,\n  They, by their deeds, the fateful measure fill;\nElecting to be clean, or unclean lingering still.\n\n  Race upon race has perished in its pride;\n  And nations lustrous as the lights of heaven\n  Have sinned and sunk in reckless suicide,\n  Upon this ground, since that dread word was given.\n  Realms battle-rent, and regions tempest-riven;                1430\n  The wrath-swept land for ages desolate;\n  A wretched remnant blasted, curst, and driven\n  Before the furies of revengeful fate;\nTill wonder asks in vain, What of their former state[3]?\n\n  Wouldst know the cause, the upas-tree that bore\n  The blight of desolation? 'Tis a theme\n  To melt earth's heart, and move all heaven to pour\n  With sorrow's heaving flood; as when supreme\n  O'er fallen Lucifer, the generous stream\n  Of grief half quenched the joy of victory.                    1440\n  Mark how the annals of the ages teem\n  With repetition. Time, eternity,\nThe same have taught; but few, alas! the moral see.\n\n  There is a sin called self, which binds the world\n  In fetters fell, than all save truth more strong;\n  A sin most serpentine, round all men curled,\n  And in its fatal fold earth writhes full long;\n  Crime's great first cause, the primal root of wrong,\n  Parent of pride, and tree of tyranny.\n  To lay the axe doth unto thee belong.                         1450\n  Strike, that the world may know of liberty,\nAnd Zion's land indeed a land of Zion be!\n\n  A choice land, blest above all other lands,\n  Since earth, reborn, rose sinless from the flood;\n  Beloved by Him whose holy feet and hands\n  Were pierced to pour the all-redeeming blood.\n  Here stands the ancient Altar[4], and here stood\n  The Ark, till borne triumphant o'er the wave--\n  The hungry wave that made all flesh its food,\n  All save a few, whom godly living gave                        1460\nTo see life's single way and shun death's dual grave[5].\n\n  The Old World, not the New, by man misnamed;\n  Cradle and grave of mouldering nations vast;\n  Whose stalwart spirit stature, seen, had shamed\n  The mightiest of known empires, present, past.\n  The land where Adam dwelt[6], where Eden cast\n  From flaming gate the heaven-appointed pair,\n  Who fell that man might be; a fall still chaste[7],\n  Albeit they sinned, descending death's dread stair,\nTo fling life's ladder down, Love's work[8] and way prepare.    1470\n\n  Here rose the Zion of primeval days[9],\n  Type of a greater Zion yet to rise;\n  Here Enoch's walls and towers reflung the rays,\n  Rolled back the flooding splendors of the skies,\n  Whose portal wide gave welcome. Upward flies\n  The sainted city, self denied, dethroned:\n  In all things one, their power e'en death defies:\n  In dust they ne'er shall slumber; cleansed, condoned,\nThey wait the final change[10], through Him who hath atoned.\n\n  Here cometh up the New Jerusalem[11];                         1480\n  Here cometh down that risen realm of old,\n  Jehovah's seat, earth's jeweled diadem,\n  Joy of the world, by prophet tongues extolled.\n  Japheth, here joined with Shem[12], finds Israel's fold,\n  An ark of peace[13] amid a world of war.\n  The ensign[14] on the mountains here behold!\n  'Tis Joseph signals Jacob[15] from afar,\nAnd points him to the goal where God and glory are.\n\n  Ancient of Days[16] here sits, as at the first,\n  When time and earth and Adam's race were young;               1490\n  When, bowed with age, a great soul's sunset burst\n  In blessings on his seed. Prophetic tongue,\n  Thy patriarchal tone through time hath rung!\n  Michael, the prince, the monarch of our race,\n  Sire of a world from dust and spirit sprung;\n  Here sits he, throned in fire; before his face\nTen thousand times ten thousand throng the judgment place.\n\n  Wherefore this land must unpolluted be;\n  Or, if defiled, by blood again made clean\n  From grime of sin, from grind of tyranny;                     1500\n  Free from the ills that other lands have seen,\n  Free from the blots that now dim freedom's sheen.\n  No nation by vain boasting shall abide;\n  Bid thine beware, lest here the sanguine scene\n  Reacted be, and ruin, spawn of pride,\nSpring from the soil where nations great as thine have died.\n\n  Hesperia[17], be just--the right maintain,\n  And foe without, nor foe within, prevails!\n  Here nations slay themselves, if they be slain,--\n  Brother 'gainst brother, sire 'gainst son, till fails         1510\n  The fount of widow's tears and orphan's wails.\n  Hear thou that servant[18] whom the Father sends--\n  Hear him and heed, ere Japheth's planet pales,\n  That peace and freedom may remain thy friends,\nWhile hither, from all lands, all worlds, God's legion[19] wends.\n\n  A gathering from all glories thou shalt see,\n  Blest land of Joseph[20], honored, lifted high!\n  Thy brother lands come bending unto thee,\n  And Gog and Magog[21] menace but to die.\n  While they that serve the Lord with single eye                1520\n  Shall see Him in the midst; the goal then won,\n  When time no longer flecks eternity,\n  Nor need is there of star, or moon, or sun,\nSince He, light's self, is risen, and heaven and earth are one.\n\n  Thus far the angel, Ramah's sentinel,\n  His vigil keeping on that lonely hill;\n  And thus the spelled yet speechful auditor,\n  Around the hearthside of that humble home.\n  There sire and matron, trusted kith and kin,\n  Give faithful credence to the story strange,                  1530\n  Pondering the tidings wise and wonderful.\n\n  Thence oft above that mount of mystery,\n  Of buried lore the solemn sepulchre,\n  Meet modern seer and ancient oracle.\n  And while humility at wisdom's feet\n  Expectant waits, where truth from earth shall spring,\n  Comes, as from riven tomb, this wondrous tale:\n\n  Where Joseph[22], where wast thou, that time when torn\n  Was earth asunder; ocean's cleaving sword\n  The wedded lands wide severing[23]? Where, when borne         1540\n  Deep through the watery world, as there devoured\n  By wind and wave that harmless o'er them roared,\n  The pilgrim sons of Shinar[24]--favored band,\n  From that far clime where Babel's folly towered\n  And language foundered on confusion's strand--\nWon here a precious heritage, a promised land?\n\n  Preserver of the pure and primal tongue[25],\n  Most faithful found 'mid living sons of men,\n  Their leader looked on God; then wrestling wrung\n  By spirit might, and paged with fiery pen,                    1550\n  The full of what would be, of what had been;\n  Sealing the secret till an hour should chime\n  When faith as mighty unto mortal ken\n  Would bring the marvel of a book sublime[26],\nBridging with lightful lore the shadowy gulf of time.\n\n  But pilgrim prows now part the unknown wave;\n  Above, around, baptismal billows[27] roll.\n  Divinity, their guide, protection gave,\n  Else had engulfing seas entombed the whole.\n  Though tight each launch, where lines of lustre stole         1560\n  From molten stones, late struck from Shelem's height[28],\n  And lit by touch divine. Unto the goal\n  Of that grim voyage, banishing the night,\nThose crystal miracles gave forth their friendly light.\n\n  Till loomed to wistful eyes this waiting land,\n  Spreading with wing-like continents[29] afar,\n  As if to welcome worlds. The Chaldean band\n  The Northland chose, lured by a favoring star,\n  For South, as North, of human soul was bare.\n  But liberty loves most a northern zone,                       1570\n  Where nature's ramparts e'en 'gainst nature's war\n  Put forth protection. Liberty alone\nMahonri's realm[30] might rule--no king, no crown, no throne.\n\n  Still, mighty spirit, thou art manifest!\n  What creed or clan shall win Columbia's crown?\n  Though freedom weep, by anarchy opprest,\n  Hesperia's face reflect Europa's frown,\n  Sceptered religion ne'er shall tread men down.\n  Belief and unbelief here find one plane,\n  That freedom's greater cause[31] be not o'erthrown,           1580\n  But spring and spread till every tongue maintain\nThe kingdom of the King whose throne all worlds sustain.\n\n  Here dawns that universal liberty--\n  Theme of the prophet tongue, the poet pen--\n  When, winged with power and crowned with purity,\n  Earth shall be heaven, and gods shall dwell with men;\n  Fraternity divine, that e'er hath been,\n  And e'er shall be, the blissful lot of those\n  Who, conquering self, bind Satan, fetter sin,\n  And soar beyond the reach of mortal woes,                     1590\nRising to sainted heights, as all past Zions rose[32].\n\n  Till then no king upon this crownless land,\n  Reserved to freedom and to righteousness.\n  'Gainst her none prosper, lifting hostile hand.\n  Blest haven, fortressed by God's mightiness[33]!\n  Kingcraft and priestcraft plant their sure distress.\n  The past hath spoken--heed the warning tone:\n  Of pride beware, and baser sordidness--\n  Self's groveling tyranny, with heart of stone,\nWhereby, in ages gone, this land did grieve and groan.          1600\n\n  \"Give us a king[34]!\" their cry, when power had come,\n  When wealth was massed, and men were multiplied;\n  \"A king! A king!\"--vibrant the echoing dome\n  From northern lake to gulf and ocean tide;\n  For Satan in their hearts had planted pride.\n  Grieved was the nation's wise and watchful sire;\n  Grieved was the faithful kinsman at his side;\n  From eyes of both shot gleams of righteous ire,\nAs voiced ambitious will its ominous desire.\n\n  They sighed: \"This leadeth to captivity--                     1610\n  Perchance destruction, ending dark and dire.\n  Yet must we yield to human liberty\n  Its own, e'en though a brand from freedom's fire\n  Kindle for freedom's self the fatal pyre.\"\n  So saying, they anointed one their king\n  Who craved the crown, by patriot son and sire\n  Put by in pure denial, lest it bring\nFirst care, then crime, and waken woes then slumbering.\n\n  For though a king see duty's pathway plain,\n  And walk therein, as he who now arose;                        1620\n  What monarch from misrule can all refrain,\n  When privilege lifts power o'er friends and foes?\n  Bare is the reign untarnished to the close,\n  And rarer still the blameless dynasty.\n  Ofttimes as princes the unkingliest pose,\n  Because, forsooth, they come of some tall tree,\nWhose root and trunk were sound, while branches blasted be.\n\n  True kingliness--what else proves man a king?\n  A slave, though throned and sceptered, bides a slave;\n  Nor pride, nor pelf, nor all that power may bring,            1630\n  Can make the serf a sovereign, or yet save\n  The dust of either from the common grave.\n  Royal the soul must be, or comes to end\n  All royalty. Spirit, then blood, God gave;\n  And each at last its separate way doth wend\nHome to the parent source, to meet no more, nor blend.\n\n  Scarce gone the goodly ruler when his realm\n  Saw fierce rebellion rear its horrent head.\n  Usurping treason seized the civic helm,\n  Wrong trampled right, and justice, judgment, fled.            1640\n  Ages looked on while battling kingdoms bled.\n  Lifted the warning voice--its pleading vain:\n  A blood-drowned continent, a sea of dead,\n  And, of a mighty people, fallen, self-slain,\nA prophet and a king, a solitary twain[35].\n\n  That prophet saw the coming of the Lord\n  Unto the Old, the New, Jerusalem;\n  Saw Israel returning at His word\n  From wheresoe'er His will had scattered them;\n  The realm's wide ruin saw, and strove to stem.                1650\n  That king, sole scion of a perished race,\n  Casting his blood-stained sword and diadem,\n  Lived but to see another nation[36] place\nFirm foot upon the soil, then vanished from its face.\n\n---\n\n  Wondrous, indeed, that ancient word and wise;\n  But wiser and more wondrous still the tale--\n  The after tale[37] of silent centuries,\n  Tongued by the guardian of the tome of gold:\n\n  Again, athwart the wilderness of waves\n  Surging old East and older West between,                      1660\n  Where the lone sea a flowery southland laves,\n  And Zarahemla reigns as ocean queen,\n  Braving the swell, a storm-tossed bark is seen.\n  From doomed Jerusalem, to Jacob dear,\n  Albeit a leper[38], groping, blind, unclean,\n  Goes forth Manasseh's prophet pioneer[39],\nPredestined to unveil the hidden hemisphere.\n\n  His lot to reap and plant on this rare shore\n  The promise of his fathers: Joseph's bough[40],\n  From Jacob's well, the billowy wall runs o'er;                1670\n  Abides in strength the archer-stricken bow,\n  Unto the utmost bound prevailing now,\n  Of Hesper's heaven-upholding hills. Bend, sheaves\n  Of Israel, as branches bend with snow,\n  Unto his sheaf grown mightiest! Here, as leaves\nFor multitude, the son the great sire's glory weaves.\n\n  Ere chimes for him the earth-departing hour,\n  Summoning a weary soul to restful toil\n  In risen worlds, where life puts on all power,\n  Lehi his house convenes,--their hearts the while              1680\n  Aglow beneath the burning words that pile\n  A pyramid of prophecy whose spire\n  Empierces heaven,--and lest they soil\n  The prospect pure, and tempt Jehovah's ire,\nWarns them 'gainst ways of pride and paths of dark desire.\n\n  He speaks of Joseph's, Judah's, destiny;\n  Of blighting and of blessings yet to pour;\n  Proclaims deliverance his own shall see,\n  When cometh one the wandering to restore;\n  Forenames a chosen seer[41] (revealed of yore,                1690\n  When the boy dreamer's star o'er Egypt rose),\n  Bringing from dust a blest land's buried lore[42].\n  Seals then his benison, and eyelids close\nTo wake on worlds divine, whither, past all, he goes.\n\n  The favored son[43] of that prophetic sire--\n  Favored because most faithful and most just--\n  Hath soared to sacred mysteries still higher,\n  And tongued to envious ears the heavenly trust.\n  And serpent self, that demon of the dust,\n  Hath coiled and clung around rebellious souls,                1700\n  Ne'er friendly though fraternal, whose distrust\n  And jealousy breed bitterness that rolls\nRivers of wormwood 'twixt two races and their goals.\n\n  Now peoples twain the Promised Land divide:\n  Northland and Southland see their tribes increase,\n  From Arctic floe to far Antarctic tide;\n  From where the Eastern waves their thunders cease,\n  To where the Western waters are at peace.\n  White and delightsome, they that worship God;\n  They that deny Him, dark, degenerate, these,                  1710\n  Doomed the stern wild to penetrate and plod--\nTransgression's scourge and school, the Chastener's heavy rod[44].\n\n  The throneless ruler of the regnant race--\n  King, but no tyrant--prophet, priest, and seer,\n  Meets upon sacred summits, face to face\n  (As when to Moses drew Jehovah near),\n  The Infinite and Spirit Minister[45],\n  Meets Him as man meets man, and by His grace\n  The power is given, with seeric eye to peer,\n  Time's vista viewing through prophetic glass:                 1720\nPlain to his gaze revealed, the unborn ages pass.\n\n  War, slaughter, conquest; heroes, sages, famed;\n  Kingdoms, republics, empires, rise and fall;\n  Till pride unknown, and tyranny unnamed,\n  Where righteous rule brings blessedness to all.\n  Then self again, the universal thrall.\n  The faithful, dead or dwindled to a few,\n  Crime begets crimes the heavens to appall.\n  Now arrows of God's anger pierce them through,\nAnd horrors piled on horrors make misery's retinue.             1730\n\n  All this and more the prophet-prince foresaw[46];\n  Messiah's self--Jehovah--Him beheld,--\n  The Perfect One, in whom was found no flaw,\n  Though slander as an ocean round Him swelled.\n  Life's deathless tree--deathless, though demon-felled;\n  The crash resounding to this far-off shore,\n  Whose winnowed remnant welcomed Him, revealed\n  In risen glory, when had ceased the roar\nOf wrecking tempests, flung His radiant face before.\n\n  At Whose rebuke the haughty mountains bowed.                  1740\n  Shorn by the whirlwind, sunk, or swept away,\n  No more their frown the lowly valleys cowed,\n  Rising like billows 'mid the wrathful fray,\n  And dashing 'gainst the skies their dusty spray.\n  Rocks, boulders, hills, no titan strength could lift,\n  Hurtle as pebbles in the storm-fiend's play.\n  Earth opes her jaws, and through the yawning rift\nCities, peoples, vanish; of hope, of life bereft.\n\n  Three hours of tempest, and three days of night;\n  Thick darkness, thunder-burst, and lightning flash;           1750\n  Millions engulfed, millions in prostrate plight,\n  Groveling as slaves that feel or fear the lash,\n  Mingling their groans and cries with grind and crash\n  Of crags the cyclone's catapult impels,\n  Whose shrieking flails the fields and forests thrash!\n  Wild o'er the land roused ocean's anger swells,\nAnd flame's relentless tongue the final doom[47] foretells.\n\n  Three hours of stormful strife--then all is still,\n  Save for a voice the universe might hear,\n  Proclaiming what hath hapt as heaven's high will,             1760\n  Dispensing pardon and dispelling fear.\n  Anon a mightier marvel doth appear;\n  Uprolls the misty curtain of the sky--\n  The midday sun no more their minister,\n  Greater hath risen! and glories multiply,\nAs angels in their gaze earthward and heavenward fly.\n\n  He greets them as a shepherd greets his flock;\n  Shows them His wounded side, His hands, His feet;\n  Then builds His church upon the stricken Rock,\n  Where flow life's healing waters, limpid, sweet,              1770\n  As infant innocence[48], that joys to meet\n  Its great Original. With holy hand\n  He ministers, bids death and hell retreat,\n  And singles twelve from out the sainted band,\nTo sow with words of life the trembling, tear-worn land.\n\n  He bids them prize the truth from heaven outpoured--\n  What late His tongue hath told, and all that seers\n  Of earlier days, who owned Him as their Lord,\n  Have sounded in a world's unwilling ears;\n  That truth with truth may blend in after years,               1780\n  As rivers many to one ocean flow;\n  That when Messiah in his might appears,\n  Men all may see Him as he is, and know\nThe Majesty of Heaven, 'mid nations bending low.\n\n  He greets them as His \"other sheep\"[49]--a fold\n  Unknown to Judah, but to Jesus known;\n  And tells of others still, whose fate untold\n  Hath been the skeptic's scoff and stumbling stone.\n  All Israel must hear, and one alone\n  The shepherd be, to guide and govern all.                     1790\n  Where'er, from torrid belt to icy zone,\n  They wander, they must heed the warning call,\nAnd flee to Zion's shore ere crumbling Babel fall.\n\n  He numbers them with Joseph, known of old,\n  Whose flock the wolves shall tear in time to come;\n  Because a wasteful heir his portion sold,\n  A prodigal forsook the parent dome,\n  To riot in the wilderness and roam,\n  Feeding on husks: yet, turning at the last,\n  Redeemed from darkness, to the Father's home;                 1800\n  And there, the hour of retribution past,\nForgiven, at His dear feet their weary souls they cast.\n\n  Anon He pictures Japheth's destiny[50]:\n  The Gentile prospering in the Promised Land,\n  The guardian of the ark of liberty,\n  So long as he for human right shall stand,\n  Nor trample on Jehovah's high command.\n  But woe to them of flinty heart and face\n  Who from Him turn, to smite with ruthless hand\n  The withered remnant of a star-ruled race!                    1810\nFor Laman yet shall spring, a lion to the chase[51].\n\n  Vexing the vexer with a vengeance sore,\n  Who, false to highest hope of human need,\n  Shall tyrant turn, and play the part no more\n  Of nursing parent unto Joseph's seed,\n  For whom a nation founded was and freed,\n  That from its hand to his fierce house might flow\n  The promise of his fathers. God shall plead\n  With Japheth, till his pride shall melt like snow,\nSwept from the mountain side, chased by the sun's red glow[52]. 1820\n\n  His word now builds the New Jerusalem--\n  (Earth-born, though basking in eternal rays)[53],\n  Which Japheth, blent with Jacob, joined with Shem,\n  Shall rear on Joseph's land in modern days.\n  The Father's work of wonder He portrays:--\n  A servant, marred[54], though hurt not, and yet healed,\n  Whom wisdom hearkens to, whom faith obeys;\n  Arm of the Lord, long lying unrevealed,\nUplifted and made bare, His flock to fold and shield.\n\n  Sounds then a parting note, a plaint of woe,                   1830\n  'Gainst coming ages of iniquity,\n  Ere purifying floods o'er earth shall flow,\n  And man from sin and self delivered be.\n  Then, of the twelve, he sanctifieth three[55],\n  With power o'er death, and gives them to remain\n  Till comes He in His glory, Lo! they see\n  The opening heavens receive Him once again;\nAnd marvels else behold, that mortal tongues must chain.\n\n  Three generations pass in righteousness;\n  A fourth begins, and still from strand to strand              1840\n  Peace rules, love reigns, and wealth and wisdom bless\n  The banded nations, walking hand in hand;\n  Christ's word supreme above a willing land,\n  Where rich and poor, common their goods, their gold,\n  Seeking God's glory, free and equal stand,\n  Loving each one his neighbor, as of old;\nForebeam of day divine[56], when night's dull mists have rolled.\n\n  That restful day shall dawn; but e'en as storm,\n  Darkness and devastation, judgments dire,\n  Changed with convulsive throe the land's first form,          1850\n  Made mountains plains, plains mountains, purged with fire\n  And flood this soil--as saw my nation's sire,\n  Ere light and peace looked down from realms above;--\n  So shall it be[57], and more, when heaven's hot ire,\n  Besoming a world's iniquity, shall move,\nIn burning, melting might, the gold, the dross, to prove.\n\n  Two centuries of love the land caress;\n  Buried the ancient feud, and banished vice;\n  When pride, to breed anew the old distress,\n  Crawls like a serpent to this paradise:                       1860\n  Again the tempter's wiles the weak entice;\n  Again the fall, the sorrow and the shame;\n  Again, while angels weep, do fiends rejoice;\n  For now divided hearts, with hate aflame,\nBelie with wicked deeds their righteous faith and fame.\n\n  Farewell to peace and power forever past!\n  Deepest in crime the once delightsome race,\n  Which melts as would the avalanche if cast\n  Into the furnace of the red sun's face[58].\n  Men vie in deeds that devils would debase;                    1870\n  Southland 'gainst Northland strives with might insane;\n  Backward, still backward, bends the bloody chase[59];\n  Crimson the land with carnage; main to main\nSurges a sea of slaughter--millions are the slain!\n\n  The white dissolves; the swart, the red, remains.\n  Night clothes the continents, and 'thwart the gloom\n  No ray descends on shadowed peaks or plains,\n  From history's sun. Darkness, a living doom,\n  Mantles mind, soul, making the land one tomb.\n  Then bursts the dawn--breaks forth the East in light,         1880\n  Where Japheth, cramped and straitened, cries for room.\n  Rent mystery's veil, naked, in savage plight,\nNow occidental realms greet oriental sight[60]!\n\n  First found by him whose faith was mightiest,\n  And now by one whose patience[61] most excels.\n  Ere storm-pushed prow hath pierced the wordless West,\n  A kingly soul, unthroned, uncrowned, compels\n  The homage of a queen. His mind dispels\n  The gathered gloom of ages; mutineers\n  And malcontents his presence calms and quells.                1890\n  Past threatening reefs of bigotry he steers,\nAnd builds a bridge of life that binds the hemispheres.\n\n  The Gentile comes, as destiny decrees,\n  To Zion's land[62], for freedom held in store,\n  And Israel's triumph. Friends of freedom, these,\n  Like to the pilgrim bands that long before\n  A refuge found upon this sheltering shore.\n  But followers of right oft wrong the right;\n  Oppressed become oppressors[63] in an hour;\n  And now, as day that pushes back the night,                   1900\nThe strong the weak assail, enslave, and put to flight.\n\n  Nor yet can fate forsake them: Japheth's hand\n  'Gainst Jacob's wrath-doomed remnant still prevails.\n  Tyrants oppress him from the motherland[64];\n  The Lord of Hosts a champion arms and mails,\n  To quell whose might no human power avails;\n  Nor grander cause or chieftain e'er came forth.\n  Him as its sire the new-born nation hails,\n  And e'en would crown the man of matchless worth[65],\nDid heaven vouchsafe such king to shame the kings               1910\n      of earth.\n\n  But thou hast heard: No king upon this land\n  From Japheth's loins. Yet shall there come a King,\n  And Japheth's host with Jacob's equal stand,\n  While bending nations to that Monarch bring\n  Their gold, their glory--friendship's offering.\n  What though invasion, anarchy, shall strive\n  To strangle right, to poison freedom's spring?\n  Naught that conspires 'gainst Zion's weal can thrive.\nJehovah--He shall reign, and righteous rule survive.            1920\n\n  Forerunner thou, and thy forerunners these,\n  Prophet of Ephraim, Joseph's namesake seer[66]!\n  More than those ancient bridgers of the seas,\n  Unveiler of the long hid hemisphere,\n  Whose mystery lies booked and buried here.\n  Mass thou the might of Joseph, yet to join\n  With Judah's might, Messiah's throne to rear;\n  That on this sacred shore may rise and shine\nThe City Pure-in-Heart--Kingdom of King divine.\n\n  Woe to the tongue that 'gainst thee shall contend!            1930\n  Break weapons all that smite this iron rod[67],\n  Beginning of the burden of the end--\n  The promised fulness of the word of God;\n  The voice of ages whispering from the sod.\n  That voice withstood, remaineth shut and sealed\n  The mightier things in mystery's abode,\n  Volume on volume slumbering unrevealed,\nWhile wake these lesser truths till now from man concealed.\n\n  Speak thou to Laman's remnant, and reveal\n  The great things done, the greater yet to do,                 1940\n  That bring deliverance unto Israel.\n  To white, to red, to men of every hue,\n  To all redeemed His mighty merit through,\n  Teach thou the way--tell how by Grace sublime\n  The spirit gardens[68] of the endless blue\n  Are visited, each vineyard in its time,\nWhile glad sabbatic bells ring out their grateful chime.\n\n  Earth's hour is nigh--her blest millennial hour,\n  And dawn there shall a higher, holier day,\n  Prepared for by these principles of power,                    1950\n  Divinest laws that loftiest worlds obey,\n  Where gods and angels honor them alway.\n  There greatest by humility are known,\n  There order reigns, and right doth all realms sway;\n  Like claiming like, and cleaving to its own,\nSovereign and subject sharing the glory of the Throne.\n\n  But earth's proud will must bend to will of heaven,\n  Or twain can ne'er be one, that one for all;--\n  By angel love the demon lust be driven,\n  And man set free from self's ignoble thrall.                  1960\n  Let not the mighty task thy mind appall.\n  What God hath done shall He not do again?\n  A day of power shall batter down the wall;\n  The willing heart shall rend the hampering chain;\nAnd o'er this ransomed world, first Son, then Sire, shall reign.\n\n  Proclaim the Dispensation of the End,\n  Era pre-destined, pre-ordained of yore,\n  When all of Christ's, on earth, in heaven, shall blend,\n  And build the Empire of the Evermore.\n  Ascendeth One who all things shall restore--                  1970\n  The dead to life, the dew-drop to its source.\n  Spirit must reign, the carnal rule no more;\n  And this lest earth, winging the sunward course,\nUnmeet for such a change, melt 'neath consuming curse.\n\n  Smite thou that sin of self, which binds the world\n  In fetters fell, than all save truth more strong;\n  That sin most serpentine, round all men curled,\n  Within whose fatal fold earth writhes full long.\n  To loose the coil doth unto thee belong.\n  To free the soul from sordid tyranny,                         1980\n  Be sacrifice the burden of thy song.\n  Ay, sacrifice shall set the prisoner free,\nAnd men this truth shall learn, that light is liberty.\n\n\n\n\nCANTO SEVEN\n\nThe Arcana Of The Infinite[1]\n\n\nFlake upon flake, then slide succeeding slide,\nThe marvel and the wonder multiplied.\n\nGarnered in one vast mind[2] the glacial store,\nThe glittering avalanche of heavenly lore,\nWhose living streams shall slake the burning thirst\nOf time unborn, of nations yet unnurst;\nTorrent of truth, river of prophecy,                            1990\nRolling through worlds to find fulfillment's sea.\n\nHe stands, as Moses on the mystic mount,\nWhere knowledge pours from wisdom's purest fount;\nStands 'neath the droppings of the crystal eaves,\nStands on the loftiest summit man achieves,\nWhere light eternal--was, is, and to be--\n'Lumines the vistas of immensity,\nThe ultimates of human destiny.\n\nHe walks and talks with God, as friend with friend;\nHe reads the Book of Time from end to end,                      2000\nAnd in the Volume of Eternity\nPeruses past and far futurity;\nRanges to realms of wider mystery--\nNe'er-ending hope, ne'er-ending history;\nWhile from all depths that sink, all heights that soar,\nCome voices, visions, of the Evermore.\nLike unto like, above, beneath, the skies,\nDeep calls to deep, and faith to faith replies.\n\nHe hears the solemn dispensations[3] chime,\nFrom morn till eve, from birth to death, of time;               2010\nHe notes the markings of the horologe,\nThe set times of the great unerring Judge;\nThen sees those dispensations as they run\nTheir 'lotted course, like hours 'twixt sun and sun.\nWave after wave rolls o'er the shining sand,\nWave after wave breaks higher up the strand,\nWith all of weal or woe the ages send.\nAs sundered ocean tides that shoreward tend,\nNow past and future o'er the present pend,\nTill on the narrow isthmus sea meets sea,                       2020\nAnd time no longer parts eternity.\n\nHe hears the soundings of the trumpets seven[4],\nWhose angels, stooping from the heights of heaven,\nProclaim, in tones to rend the echoing spheres,\nThe secrets of the Seven Thousand Years;\nThe secret of a book with seven seals,\nThat all of mortal mystery reveals;\nMan's course, God's chronicle, life's tale told true,\nNor tinged with favor's tint, with hatred's hue;\nEarth's week of history, whose sabbath chime                    2030\nSummons to rest the weary soul of time.\n\nThe Holy Order[5] that for aye hath reigned,\nFor loyal faith and lofty deeds ordained;\nThe all-creating, all-controlling chain,\nWhereby the Gods perpetuate their reign,\nWhereby the higher, bending, lift the lower;\nWielding the sceptre of Almighty Power,\nRuling by right the nations, ill aware\nWhence came the thrones that have been, thrones that\n      are;                                                      2040\nWhich sets up one and puts another down,\nTheir fate proclaimed as fortune's smile or frown;\nThe power that reigns not save in righteousness,\nPersuades in meekness, chastens but to bless;\nThe might of heaven, the pure and potent chain\nStainless, save mortal links their lustre stain,\nAnd plunged through fire are purified again,\nHe sees extending through the storms of time,\nAnchor and cable of a ship sublime.\n\nPilots of life on death's fierce tempest tossed,                2050\nLove's legionaries, saviors of the lost;\nA sacred army's solemn pride and boast,\nThe janissaries of the heavenly host;\nThe jeweled circlet of the Central Gem,\nJehovah's body-guard--the Gibborim.\n\nThe guileless followers of the guiltless Lamb,\nOf Israel ere Earth knew Abraham[6];\nSealed in the forehead with the sacred Name,\nBearing the Ark of God, the Sword of Flame[7];\nBehold them coming, coming, as they came                        2060\nWhene'er was kindled here the beacon blaze\nBy each Elias of the olden days!\nTruth, error, shine and shadow[8], alternate,\nAs oft as mankind proves degenerate.\n\nBut ever, as the day-beam sinks and dies,\nThe stars reset their lanterns in the skies;\nAnd unto Moses in the wilderness\nComes greater light, succeeded by the less[9].\nTill truth the fulness of its ray restores,\nAnd heaven o'er earth the holy unction pours,                   2070\nBy ministers upon each hemisphere,[10]\nSent to proclaim what every soul must hear.\n\nThe promise past, fulfillment now is seen,\nThe Perfect Church[11], resplendent in the sheen\nOf risen Righteousness, whose arm once more\nPuts forth in power to rescue and restore.\nGray grows to crimson, crimson melts to gold,\nAnd dawns the day by starry night foretold,\nWhose lamps prophetic pale their silvery rays,\nLost in the golden light of Latter Days.                        2080\nA twofold Church, a dual Bride he sees;\nTime's the full reflex of Eternity's.\n\nVisioned the Dispensation of the End,\nWhere Zions meet, where dispensations blend,\nAnd time's sad rivers cease their mighty moan\nIn sobbing requiem o'er his sunken throne,\nTill death departs, and joy, from zone to zone,\nWelcomes the rightful Heir unto his own.\n\nVisioned the Council of the Ancient One[12],\nWhere stars make ready for the rising Sun;                      2090\nWhere Adam yields the mortal world he won,\nUnto the Sabbath Lord, till sabbath done,\nAnd Sire receives the Kingdom from the Son.\nEre when, award of fulness is there none;\nThough great ones gain the far celestial shore,\nShining and perfect as they shone before.\n\n'Lumed by the Lamp that giveth endless view,\nDiscerns he spirits false and spirits true;\nUnmasking Satan with the keys of light[13],\nThat blind may see and deaf may hear aright,                    2100\nA message marvelous to eyes and ears,\nThe rhythmic message of the songful spheres.\n\n\"Truth is eternal!\"--Thus the solemn voice--\n\"'Twas not her birth made morning stars rejoice,\nNay, but her mission to a new-born sphere,\nWhither, as oft, her shining bark would steer\nWith spirit crew, kin to the kingly race\nPeopling the burning orbs of bourneless space.\n\n\"Truth is eternal, endless as its God,\nAuthor and framer of the changeless code,                       2110\nEver-returning, oft-repeating plan,\nRedeeming from all worlds the race of man.\nLife-saving line, far flung from heaven to earth,\nTo rescue souls--God's wealth, supremest worth--\nRescue the fallen and the penitent,\nWho else must bide in hopeless banishment.\nUnending were their mortal prisonment,\nDid ne'er truth's sunlight gild the gloomy sod,\nGospel of mercy, gift of the gracious God,\nWho gave up life to bridge the dark gulf o'er,                  2120\nAnd close its cruel jaws forevermore;\nLove, striving with belief and unbelief,\nGleaning life's harvest to the latest sheaf.\n\n\"A God whose glory is intelligence,\nA God whose knowledge gives omnipotence,\nWho makes, maintains, redeems, and glorifies,\nBending to lift the lowliest to the skies,\nBy triple lever, by the mystic birth,\nBy Three in heaven, the typed of three on earth:\nWater, that signifies obedience,                                2130\nSure test of faith, true sign of penitence;\nSpirit whereby the flesh is justified,\nAnd blood, whereby the soul is sanctified;--\nLifting by these, but not by these alone,\nBy every word from Him upon the Throne,\nSpirit 'mid spirits, most intelligent[14],\nWherefore their Sovereign Sire benevolent,\nGiver of life and light whereby the rest\nPress on and on till all things are possessed.\n\n\"Intelligence, eternal[15], uncreate,                           2140\nThough God-begotten in the spirit state,\nWhere all creations see maturity,\nEre launched as souls upon the mortal sea,\nTo prove their worth, make choice 'twixt wrong and right,\nAnd walk by faith as erst they walked by sight;\nAs free to sound the gulf as soar the height.\n\n\"Man a divinity in embryo,\nWho, ere he reign above, must serve below;\nHis spirit in earth element baptize,\nFor birth and death are baptism[16] to the wise.                2150\nThe space that parts the lower from the higher,\nSpanned by development of son to Sire,\nOf daughter unto Mother's high estate,\nWhere man and woman are inseparate.\n\n\"Time a probation; earth, through time, a school,\nWhere justice reigns, though oft the unjust rule.\nPain, trouble, toil, preceptors of the soul;\nDeath, birth, but portals to and from life's goal--\nLife's fount, where all as infant spirits sprang,\nAnd sons of God in countless chorus sang,                       2160\nUnheeding earthly sorrow[17]--parent pang\nOf after joy, o'er which their triumph rang.\n\n\"The fall, whereby the worlds are put in pawn,\nAnd held in durance till redemption dawn,\nA plan divine that changeth part to whole,\nImmortal spirit to immortal soul.\n\n\"Second estate[18] here interlinked with first,\nFor godliness where spirit life was nurst,\nAnd Satan's rebel host, heaven's third, were sent\nTo unentabernacled banishment;                                  2170\nTempters, beguilers, triers of the true,\nWho now reap greater gain, or sadly rue\nThe loss of all, surrendering to him\nWho warreth endlessly 'gainst Elohim,\nAnd, shorn of glory, would all light bedim;\nWhere many, wrecked, to awful depths go down,\nWhile few return to wear the waiting crown,\nReigning where others serve.\n\n                \"Each woe, each bliss,\nIn after worlds, the yield of life in this;                     2180\nHere garnered are the fruits from fields of yore,\nAnd sown the harvest of the evermore.\n\n\"The called are not the chosen past mischance;\nThe sanctified to glorified advance,\nAnd stewardship becomes inheritance.\nRedemption free, for God hath paid the price;\nAll else man wins by toil and sacrifice.\n\n\"As sun, or moon, or varying star[19], appears\nEach heir of glory in those endless spheres:\nSun-like the souls that live celestial laws,                    2190\nAnd moon-like they who at terrestrial pause--\nWho honor not the Saviour in the flesh,\nBut after, in the spirit realm, refresh\nTheir fainting, fettered lives at mercy's fount,\nAnd, far as merit buoys them, upward mount;\nSaved, glorified, by faith and penitence,\nMade valid, through vicarious ordinance[20],\nFor all who Him believe, who Him obey,\nAnd own in other worlds His sovereign sway.\nNor lost forever souls unsaved today:                           2200\nTelestial they who taste the pangs of hell,\nAnd pay guilt's debt ere they in glory dwell,\nTwinkling as stars whose numbers none can tell.\n\n\"Souls that to high celestial realms have won,\nDwell with the gods, beholding Sire and Son;\nWhile bounds are set that bar terrestrial heirs\n(With whom the Gracious One his presence shares),\nAnd dwellers in the far telestial spheres,\nTo whom the Holy Spirit ministers.\nGod's servants these, but to His glorious home--                2210\nThe loftiest heights of heaven--they cannot come.\n\n\"Justice and Mercy each shall have its own,\nNor one thrust other from the dual throne;\nEach shoal and deep a final fullness see,\nAnd like clasp like through all eternity.\n\n\"But who shall sound the bottomless despair\nOf one condemned the second death to share?\nIf, re-ensnared in Satan's subtle mesh,\nA soul redeemed its Saviour pierce afresh,\nSpurning the Spirit, scorning proffered ruth,                   2220\nA traitor utterly to light and truth,\nThen flames perdition's gulf, death's last abyss,\nThe lake of fire, all life's antithesis.\nAll power then powerless to change its plight;\nFor what avails the burnt-out lamp to light?\nJustice can lay no blame on blameless shelves,\nNor mercy save when souls will damn themselves.\n\n\"Twofold is death, but life has threefold sway;\nWhat ne'er created was, endures alway.\nThe organized disorganized may be,                              2230\nBut not the life that lives undyingly.\nNothing bides nothing: that which is shall be;\nThough form, not essence, change unceasingly.\nSpace, spirit, matter, all eternal are,\nAnd death but on creation wages war.\nWhate'er beginning had may have an end,\nBut life eternal doth itself defend.\n\n\"Man's inmost spark, his being's primal fire,\nAs birthless and as deathless as its Sire,--\nNo more the maker of that unmade germ                           2240\nThan man the framer of the spirit form,\nBorn and begotten in the first estate,\nGod's creature, whom God's power can uncreate.\nSpirit to spirit, dust to dust returns,\nBut bright intelligence forever burns,\nThough banished from the presence of the light,\nExiled and wandering in the outer night,\nRemembering past, and mourning present blight,\nThe end whereof, a mystery to man,\nUnsolved while bending 'neath the mortal ban,                   2250\nNone but the doomed partaker e'er shall scan.\n\n\"Higher than heaven, deeper than hell, profound,\nHis course wherein no crookedness is found--\nAn onward, upward, never-ending round.\n\n\"Comes forth all life at resurrection's call,\nWhen soul immortal sheds its mortal thrall;\nThe just first rising, who with Christ shall reign,\nWhile sinners tarry till He sounds again,\nLate issuing, in shame and self contempt,\nWhen Lucifer, unbound, shall newly tempt,                       2260\nStill striving for a glory not his own,\nTill by the Arm Almighty overthrown.\n\n\"Spirit and body, blending, make the soul,\nAs halves, uniting, form the perfect whole.\nSpirit and element, commingled, one,\nInheriting the Glory of the Sun,\nSymbol a greater union yet to be,\nWhen heaven and earth shall wed eternally,\nAnd restitution's edict seal and bind\nEternal matter to eternal mind,                                 2270\nLike unto like, for night weds not with day,\nAnd order's mandate e'en the gods obey.\n\n\"The sealing of the sexes, mate to mate,\nEarnest of exaltation's lofty state,\nWhere evermore they reign as queens and kings,\nAnd endless union endless increase brings;\nWhile serve as angels the unwedded ones,\nAbandoning their right to royal thrones.\n\n\"One are the human twain, as sheath and sword--\nWoman and man, the lady and the lord;                           2280\nEach pair the Eve and Adam of some world,\nPerchance unborn, or into space unhurled.\n\n\"From endless spirit, endless element,\nThe worlds that glow in glory's firmament.\nCreated all and governed all by law,\nPerfect they shine, or show sin's fatal flaw;\nTheir Maker's will obey or disobey,\nAnd felons found a felon's debt[21] must pay;\nWhile wiser orbs, obedient at school,\nAre robed in radiance, and have learned to rule--               2290\nAre lords of light, resplendent and supreme,\nE'en as great Kolob 'mid the kokaubeam.\n\n\"Earth a celestial law hath magnified[22],\nAnd by that law shall she be sanctified,\nAnd by the same shall she be glorified;\nBy fire refined, the gold from dross set free,\nShining forever as a crystal sea,\nCelestial seer-stone[23], making manifest\nAll things below to souls upon her breast--\nChosen, omniscient, children of the Sun,                        2300\nOffspring of Adam, Michael, Ancient One,\nWho comes anon his fiery throne to rear,\nHis council summoning from far and near.\nTen thousand times ten thousand bow the knee,\nAnd \"Father\" hail him, \"King,\" eternally.\n\n\"For so are governed all those worlds of fire,\nThat chorus in a universal choir\nThe glory of the Lord Omnipotent,\nWhose power hath framed through infinite extent\nThe splendors of the flashing firmament;                        2310\nSire of the universe, and King of Kings,\nO'er countless realms; each dusty dot that springs\nTo blazing being, empire of a god,\nWho equals Him, yet owns His sovereign rod,\nThe Central Scepter of Omnipotence,\nThe God of Gods, Supreme Magnificence,\nRegnant o'er all that is or e'er shall be,\nThroned on the summit of eternity.\n\n\"Souls there above who once below all things,\nAll things inherit, and are priests and kings,                  2320\nPillars immovable, princes unto God,\nNo more outgoing from that high abode,\nWhere past and future present are alway,\nAnd years a thousand even as a day\".\n\nWho here have lived, or would have lived, the law[24],\nExalted, numbered with the gods, he saw,\nOne with the wisdom of Omniscience,\nAnd glorious with All Intelligence.\nSo thorough and so just the perfect plan,\nWeighing the motive with the work of man!                       2330\n\nNor this the tithe of what those tongues unfold,\nNor tithe of tithe of what can ne'er be told.\nAs unto Judah's one and Joseph's three[25],\nWho tasted of translation's ecstacy;\nOr him who, spared from Babel's doom, beheld\nMessiah's unclothed spirit[26], faith-compelled;\nOr him of Tarsus, tranced, the triple seer[27]\nOf things unlawful to be uttered here;--\nAs unto souls like these was given to see\nThe marvel past, the mystery to be,                             2340\nSo upon him, their peer of modern days,\nThe Source of all-revealing sends its rays.\n\nBroken the fountains of the upper deep;\nOpened the sepulchres where ages sleep;\nThe past, the future, now the present leaven;\nWith truth from earth blends righteousness from heaven,\nWelding the parted links of being's chain,\nOld making new, the dead live again.\n\nO message marvelous to eyes and ears!\nVoices and visions of the mystic spheres!                       2350\nVoices of noonday, visions of the night,\nWhisperings of angels, and their presence bright!\nVoice of the Architect of Life's vast Plan,\nSpeaking as God to God, as man to man!\n\n\n\n\nCANTO EIGHT\n\nThe Lifted Ensign[1]\n \n \nArmed now with knowledge, panoplied with power,\nWith two-edged sword of God's authority,\nGirded by heavenly hands on shepherds twain[2],\nThe first and second of a gathering flock,\nTranscribers of the buried book of gold,\nWhose mystic page, unsealed by gift divine,                     2360\nSave part withheld of mightier mystery,\nNow challenges the wise and wondering world;--\nArmed and equipt, with staff, and stone in sling,\nStrong in the Lord, the God of Israel,\nThe dauntless David of a later day\nFares forth to meet the Giant of Untruth[3].\n\nThenceforth a warrior and a wanderer,\nA victor hated for his victories;\nTarge for the javelin of jealousy;\nHunted and hounded through the wilderness;                      2370\nOutlawed by all, all save a loyal few,\nThe patient sharers of his painful lot,\nCompanions of his mortal pilgrimage,\nRecalled with him, their earthly errand o'er,\nTo grace the courts of High Jerusalem.\n\nBut ere a day for that departure dawns,\nUnveiled once more the face of mystery.\nSpeaks from the musty tomb of buried time,\nThe all-remembering Spirit of the Past:\n\n\"Time yet was young[4], but old iniquity,                       2380\nOutcast of worlds redeemed, on earth was rife,\nAnd, self-enchained, a fallen race lay prone\nAt feet of Lucifer. And demons laughed,\nAnd hell rejoiced, and all that ribald host\nClapt hand, and danced and jeered derisively;\nWhile gods and angels wept, their pitying tears\nWhitening the spectral mountains cold and lone,\nWakening to virile springs a spirit waste.\n\n\"And there the sainted commonweal[5] arose,\nHaven divine, hill of the sanctified,                           2390\nOasis-like 'mid burning sands of sin;\nGod's people, pure in heart, and one in all,\nNo poor among them, pride and greed unknown;\nSaved by the tidings first to Adam taught,\nAnd next to Enoch's generation told.\n\n\"Righteous, they dreamt no evil, feared no ill,\nAnd death, the universal doom, defied.\nEarth not their pillow; they shall one day pass\nFrom mortal to immortal painlessly.\n\n\"Self's chain was sundered[6]; devils glared aghast,            2400\nAnd gnashed their teeth with disappointed rage,\nTrembling in terror lest perdition's pit\nEngulf them ere the time. Then gathering power,\nAs if for Armageddon's conflict[7] dire,\nWhen triumphs Michael o'er the foe unchained,\nHell's molten belch of burning hatred hurled\nUpon those hapless sons of earth who scorned\nThe refuge of the righteous; her bright towers,\nFar-beaming with terrestrial radiance[8]--\nThe promise fair of full celestial change,--                    2410\nBidding the vile beware, nor venture near\nThe awful mountain of God's holiness.\n\n\"Waxed foul the world in wickedness, piled high\nA hideous monument of shame and crime,\nWhich, toppling with its own weight, crashing fell,\nWhelming in ruin the guilty race of man,\nWhose spirits, as fierce seas their dust devoured,\nBy fiercer fiends to dungeon deeps were driven.\nNor thence redeemed till He who died for all\nSoared from the cross to set the captive free[9].               2420\n\n\"The while, on fearless wings of purity,\nCleaving as bird or ransomed soul the air,\nThe sainted city entered into rest,\nEnvied of Babel, climbing robber-like[10];\nBride of the Highest, midway hovering,\nTill folded in the bosom of the Gods,\nWhere Zions from unnumbered worlds have fled.\nType temporal of spirit antitype,\nA future moral height foreshadowing.\n\n\"Foreseen the fatal deluge. Ere the doom                        2430\nOf all save faithful Noah and his seven,--\nTri-branching tree[11] of race regenerate,\nYielding anew life's fruit and foliage,--\nEarth mourned as Rachel, Rizpah, o'er the slain,\nThe slain of men unborn, who yet must die\nDegenerate in the days that were to be.\n\n\"Then Enoch wept, and sued in sympathy,\nAnd God gave answer thus:\n\n                 'Earth yet shall rest,\nAnd, sanctified, shall see her Saviour reign,                   2440\nMonarch of worlds, His realms as ocean sands.\nBut it shall be within the latter days,\nThe days of vengeance and of wickedness,\nWhen men the Sole-begotten crucify,\nAnd He shall go again to judge the world,\nProclaimed by truth, forerun by righteousness,\nGathering the pure-in-heart unto a place--\nA holy place my people shall prepare,\nThere to await my coming, mine and thine.\nThen shown the resurrection's shadowing:                        2450\nZion above, from all creations past,\nShall meet and blend with Zion from below;\nSpirits and bodies of the just shall join,\nAnd in the midst my tabernacle be.\nYea, as I live, so will I forth again,\nMy oath to thee, my covenant, to fulfill;\nAnd earth shall garb in glory of her God,\nAnd Noah's righteous seed in Me rejoice.'\"\n\nThese things spake God to Moses, from the mount\nWhose name is veiled to ken of humankind;                       2460\nAnd thus that prophet, but through unbelief\nAnd cunning craftiness, at war with Light,\nThe fulness of his message sleeps till now,\nWhen one like unto him[12] and Him he typed,\nBrings forth the buried meaning from its grave.\n\nOn twain of ocean-parted hemispheres,\nSaw noon of time a twofold type[13] of peace,\nA pledge, a token, of millennial rest,\nAn earnest of the Commonweal to come;\nBut no fulfillment of the promise old,                          2470\nNo ripe fruition of the ancient oath,\nTo Enoch sworn, through Moses re-affirmed,\nBy Ephraim's prophet made to live again.\n\n---\n\nPromise now sought fulfillment[14],--it was time;\nFor weary earth lay groaning 'neath her load.\n\"Unclean, unclean,\" her cry, as leprous sin\nWith foul intent clasped close her shrinking form,\nAnd baned with foetid breathing all her soul.\n\nLong she had mourned and wept o'er life's decay;\nHer waning strength, from age and weariness,                    2480\nHer mother powers, unholy passion's prey,\nBringing, in lieu of giants, pygmies forth,\nTo fall untimely on her withered breast.\nDwindling and dwarfed in all save wickedness,\nAnd knowledge, oft made pander unto ill,\nWith learning gorged, for wisdom famishing,\nMan both a glutton and a starveling seemed.\n\nFor Self, the sordid, sat once more enthroned,\nBinding in servile chains a universe,\nWhere mightily men strove for place and fame,                   2490\nGreedy for power, as gluttonous for gold.\nAnd who sought neighbor's weal, save kith and kin\nOr petted friendling prest a favored claim?\n\nDisorder reigned, and satire laughed to scorn\nGrotesque, invidious inconsistency:\nTalent on title waiting, brain on birth!\nGenius at oars, and dullards at the helm!\nThe prancing war-steed fastened to the plow,\nThe ass unto the chariot--oft with rein,\nCurbing the mettled courser's noble rage,                       2500\nOr goading him with needless cruelty!\n\nMatter was monarch; Spirit stood apart,\nUnknown, unseen, or spurned and thrust aside\nBy thronging myriads, bending supple knee,\nAnd basking in the proud usurper's smile.\n\nMen bowed not down to sun and moon and stars,\nTo bird, nor beast, nor reptile, as of yore;\nBut worshipt still at other creature shrines,\nIgnoring the Creator's primal claim.\n\nPride sneered at poverty--if poor of purse,                     2510\nBut gave its hand to beggared intellect,\nTo bankrupt soul, and greeted them as peers.\nLearning, if lowly pillowing its head,\nA pauper deemed, and pitied or condemned.\nAnd many, stung by adder glance of scorn,\nShunning a life of noble toil and care,\nTo Mammon, e'en in marriage, sold themselves,\nOffering a lawless fire at passion's shrine,\nOr staining hands and heart with sabler sins.\n\nShameful the serfdom of the earth-bound soul,                   2520\nBase passion's basest slave and prisoner;\nCharmed by no music but the clink of coin;\nCankered and crusted o'er with avarice;\nDupe, dreaming shadow real, and substance show.\n\nWhere party more than principle was prized,\nWhere private gain was labeled \"public good,\"\nAnd \"patriotism\" masked hypocrisy,\nScience, when sordid, or subservient\nTo worldly ends, to aims material,\nStood pedestaled and robed in honors rare:                      2530\nWhile art fell fainting at the patron's door,\nOr starved and froze in cheerless attic den.\n\nFor aye the flesh must first be comforted,\nAnd e'en the body's luxuries abound,\nEre mind of man may clothe its nakedness,\nOr hungering heart and spirit have their own.\n\nMusic, the drama, all art, still divine,\nThough oft to ends ignoble basely bent,\nIn atmospheres miasmic, fever-fraught,\nTo folly pandering and to lechery;                              2540\nOr using gifts God-lent for good of all,\nGain's maw to glut, fame's lust to gratify.\nForgot the Giver, and adored the gift,\nAs in the pagan days of olden time.\n\nAnd thou, where thou, O sage philosophy,\nHeir to a hundred shadows of thy name!\nWhere thy spent waves on speculation's strand?\nStill striving, finite for the infinite,\nMan groping for the mystery of God,\nA river that would fain engulf the sea!                         2550\n\nReligion dead, and poesy so deemed,\nBecause unwedded to a carnal age,\nUnprostituted to its paltry aims,\nOr hid beneath vast verbal rubbish heaps,\nThe dust and debris of the former fires.\nReligion dead, but bigotry alive,\nAnd ne'er more active upon earth than now,\nWhen sect 'gainst sect in battle order stood,\nAnd schisms and dissensions multiplied.\nSome worshipt nothing, naming it a god;                         2560\nSome deemed the mortal dust a thing divine;\nReligious, irreligious, bigotry,\nEach counted victims by the hecatomb.\n\nWhat wonder, when truth's meanings tortured were,\nThe living God dethroned, and in His stead,\nA monster crouching on the Mercy Seat,\nWhose mere caprice, naught else, did save or damn?\nWafting the blood-stained criminal to bliss,\nIf he but gasped, half hung, the holy Name?\nThrusting the spotless infant into hell,                        2570\nIf un-elect, or unbaptized for sin!\nTo endless woe or weal forefating all.\nWhat wonder justice, reason, stood aghast,\nWhile faith, revolting, rushed to doubt's extreme?\n\nCritics, high-soaring, sought to clip the wings\nOf arrogance in all creeds save their own.\nHalf-fledged conclusion, findings premature,\nGrounded on tale of rock or ruin old,\nMore credence had, more reverence, from men,\nThan sacred lore of heaven-lit centuries.                       2580\nAll miracle was myth, nor aught worth while,\nSave, leaded down with learned theories,\nIt crawled, an earth-worm, wanting will to climb\nAbove the level of the commonplace.\n\nFanatics in the state as in the church,\nTheir prejudices palmed for principle,\nVain vagaries and dreams for doctrine sound;\nAnd woe to him who lisped of liberty,\nOr thought aloud one thought unthought before!\nFreedom to think and breathe--God-granted boons,                2590\nAlike, to savage, serf, and citizen--\nWas all that freedom signified to some,\nWho, as they doled a gift already given,\nBoasted themselves magnanimous and wise.\nFreedom to speak and act as conscience bade,\nAs God commanded, crushed or captive bound,\nE'en where men vaunted most of liberty.\n\nAnd peace was yet a dream unrealized,\nFor war still sowed and reaped his harvests red;\nAnd Christian guns were mightiest and slew most.                2600\n\nNor yet stood toil 'gainst capital arrayed,\nThe starving masses 'gainst the Midases,\nAs erst arose, 'gainst moss-grown old regimes,\nThe trampled Terror[15], scrawling with fierce hand\nOn history's flaming scroll his red revenge,\nWith that blood-reeking pen, the guillotine;\nNor yet faced frowning mass contemning class[16],\nJeering, oblivious of the lurking doom,\nThe glooming clouds where groaned the gathering storm.\nBut murderous craft and oath-bound anarchy,                     2610\nWith secret deeds of darkness, had begun\nTo sap the life of human government,\nAnd plot against the safety of mankind;\nWhile greeds and lusts and passions manifold,\nPreying on frailty and on innocence,\nRan riot 'mid the fairest, brightest, best.\n\nWhere, promise, thy fulfillment, pledged of yore?\n'Twas time--full time--the far-seen ensign waved,\nHailing the morn on heights of holiness,\nProclaiming peace and freedom to the world.                     2620\n'Twas time disorder fled, time justice reigned,\nAnd rightfully were held dominion's keys;\nTime pure religion's sceptre should return,\nBy poesy extolled, by art adorned,\nWith science and with reason reconciled;\nTime feeble earth her panacea found,\nTime health gave life its old longevity,\nTime pride should bend, time lust to love should yield,\nAnd self confess the joy of sacrifice.\n'Twas time an Enoch came[17], a Zion rose.                      2630\n\nSound, trump of God! as when old Jordan's wave\nShook with the thunder-tread of Joshua's host,\nShook with the shouting and the trumpet blasts,\nHeard the loud roar of crumbling Jericho,\nAnd in mad haste ran shuddering to the sea!\nSpeak now the doom foreshadowed by that fall--\nThe mightier doom of Modern Babylon:\n\nBow down thy head, proud mistress of the world!\nHumble thy haughty crest, degenerate queen!\nLift but thine eyes to where God's finger glows                 2640\nIn fiery warning on thy festal wall,\nDrowning in dread the voice of revelry,\nThy saturnalia's ribald shout and song.\nEnded thine empire, Weighed-and-Wanting-Found!\nDown to the dust in all thy worldliness,\nThou thing of brass, of iron, and of clay!\nSound, trumpet, sound! The looked-for signal looms!\nThe fateful stone upon the image rolls!\n\n\"On you, my fellow servants, I confer\nThe priestly power of Aaron, with the keys                      2650\nOf angel ministries, of penitence,\nOf water-birth that washes free from sin.\nAnd greater things than these shall yet be given--\nThe holier powers of high Melchizedek,\nWhich Mightier by three shall minister.\"\n\nAnd on each head was laid a holy hand[18];\nTime making good the promise plighted there,\nWelding another link in wonder's chain,\nWriting new chapters of a story strange,\nConfounding human learning, fools and wise.                     2660\n\n---\n\nSo came once more the panoply of power[19].\nSo rose the ensign o'er a waiting world.\n\nArmed thus with knowledge and authority,\nArmed and equipt, with staff, and stone in sling,\nFares forth a champion for Israel,\nTo grapple with Philistia and prevail.\n\nGuide unto God, repointer of the path,\nUntrodden through a thousand years nigh twained,\nThe while men roamed, as once o'er trackless wild,\nThe savage, by the untaught trapper trained;                    2670\nBlind leading blind through thick and thorny wold.\n\nLight 'mid the darkness, beam from heaven's full blaze,\nDriving the mists, that comprehended not\nHis brightness nor their own obscurity;\nHolding him blind who saw as few have seen.\nHe, blind, forsooth, who more than all beheld!\n\nSinking deep shafts to mines of mystery,\nShallow and empty to the worldly wise;\nSoaring to heights by human lore undreamt,\nYet deemed an earth-mole, groping, groveling.                   2680\n\nAloft, alone, an exile among men,\nA wanderer in a solitary way,\nPariah of prejudice and unbelief,\nWhose lowering features fiercely on him frowned.\nThought's prisoner and truth's, that maketh free\nThe spirit, though the body pine in chains,\nAlbeit the tongue, the pen, in durance be,\nConsigned to silence, captive unto light,\nAnd crucified betwixt ideal and real.\n\nBut who art thou that lookest forth sublime,                    2690\nA soul upsoaring as from sepulture,\nBody and spirit pure and free from stain,\nAs gold and silver tried by seven-timed fire?\n\nSpeak! Art not thou the Woman Wonderful[20],\nSummoned from out the silent wilderness,\nArisen from the grave of centuries,\nNo more to be despoiled or trodden down?\nA symbol of exalted sanctity,\nThe consecration of the contrite heart;\nOf ancient types the modern complement,                         2700\nChief splendor of time's sparkling firmament,\nWhose silver stars bespoke this sun of gold.\n\nBut when did darkness comprehend the day?\nWhen welcomed pleasure thorn-crowned sacrifice,\nWhose higher, holier joys than sin can know,\nAs dust and ashes to the sensual soul?\nJewels to swine, that, turning, rent the hand,\nAnd fain 'neath foot had torn and trampled all.\nSuch was Truth's fate, alas! in modern time,\n'Mid Christian men;--but not her final fate.                    2710\n\nFor who can stay the sun-like march of Truth?\nWho dim with bloody hand her beam divine?\nFirst shall he halt the progress of the stars,\nThe bright procession of the infinite;\nBlot out the day-beam, dull the scythe of time,\nShear morning's wings, roll back eternal night,\nOr shake the moveless throne of destiny.\n\nLifted an ensign never to be furled,\nUnsheathed a falchion evermore to flame,\nTill earth-born realms, in one wide empire rolled,              2720\nHail conquering Christ as life and light of all.\n\n\n\n\nCANTO NINE\n\nUpon The Shoulders of The Philistine[1]\n\n\nThe Eaglet's nest is empty[2]--void the lair\nOf the young Lion. Where, O Ephraim, where?\n\nWhere billows break along a storied strand[3],\nHeroic wave, a fair and favored land.\nRealm of a rising glory--this thy name!\nThe cradle of the Kingdom--this thy fame!\n\nThere rose the morn--though flecked with fire and blood--\nThe morn benign of human brotherhood,\nForedestined to a passing cloud's eclipse.                      2730\n\nSelf-trammeled cause, harried by hounds and whips\nOf persecution, whose infuriate maw,\nUsurping oft the form and force of law,--\nTo lawless hands a far too ready rod,--\nHad fain engulfed the growing work of God.\n\nWidowed, bereft, a land left desolate,\nA wounded bird that mourns a driven mate,\nThe plumage from its bleeding body torn,\nAnd scattered wide o'er realms remote, forlorn.\n\nOn, Ephraim, on! thy pilgrim flight renew.                      2740\nLand of the Sun--Shinea's land[4]--adieu!\n\nYet stay! Ere storm could burst, was visioned there,\nWithin the portal of the House of Prayer,\nA promise, a fulfillment, long foretold:\nElias and Messias there behold!\nWith angel keepers of the ancient keys\nOf gathering and of sealing mysteries.\nHaloed with fire, while burns the heavenly glow,\nUpon the Prophet they their powers bestow[5].\n\nSpeed then swift messengers his face before,                    2750\nTo blaze his sacred name on every shore;\nChosen and missioned from the sending skies,\nThe slumbering nations to evangelize.\nResounds 'gainst error's shield truth's ringing lance,\nUnlettered light 'gainst learned ignorance;\nPriestcraft dethroned, by Priesthood downward hurled,\nWhile ancient thunder shakes the modern world.\n\nAlready, to redeem red Laman's bands[6],\nHave virile footprints prest those virgin lands,\nWhere westering empire, in creative might,                      2760\nRolls a new world upon the wondering sight;\nWhere flower-starred prairies, in the far extent,\nKiss with soft lips the bending firmament,\nAnd sea-like rivers, solitary, lone,\nPour their proud waters toward the burning zone.\n\nLand of all lands the rarest[7], where shall rise,--\nMirrored magnificence of earth and skies,\nEach gate a pearl, each pinnacle a gem,--\nThe jasper walls of New Jerusalem;\nThe golden glory of the hemispheres,                            2770\nJehovah's throne through all the Thousand Years.\nThe land where Adam fell, where Enoch rose,\nWhere time began and history shall close.\n\nThereto and thence, by brand and fagot driven,\nHis fault to man, his fealty to heaven,\nWith here and there, perchance, an idle word\nVainglorious zeal or vengeful might afford,\nFlies Ephraim, scorched and scourged, from Japheth's\n      wrath[8],\nPushed on and on o'er steep and thorny path,                    2780\nWhipt, plundered, wounded, bleeding, to the goal,\nWhere joy in fullness crowns the conquering soul.\n\nThen hath not war, that bringeth woe and pain,\nThe right betimes, like gentle peace, to reign?\nWhat strife, what tempest, wreaks its wrath in vain?\nProsperity and persecution blend,\nAs sun and storm, faith's branch with fruit to bend.\nTwain are the shoulders[9] of the Philistine,\nThat Israel onward bear, as breeze and brine\nThe tempest-driven bark that safe o'er sea                      2790\nCarried calm Caesar[10] and his destiny.\nProgression fails with opposition's flight,\nAnd darkness is but handmaid unto light.\n\nMistrustful of \"the law of liberty[11],\"\nSounding from far the doom of slavery,\nMaddened by jealous fear, the Gentile sees\nPeril in purling stream, in whispering breeze,\nTelling of wondrous thrift, of mystic power,\nOf spirit gifts--the Bride's becoming dower;\nSees menace[12] in that migrant fold's increase,                2800\nA menace to his power, his pride, his peace;\nAnd, as of old, when Egypt's despot frowned\nOn Jacob's increase, growth from fruitful ground,\nOr when fell Herod, fain to slay life's Lord,\nPierced Rachel's bosom with unpitying sword;\nWith feigned or real suspicion of intent\nThat could but lurk in minds by malice bent,\nAnd ne'er found lodgment in the dreams of those\nNow fearfully beset by whelming foes,\nForce joins with fraud, impelled by lust of crime,              2810\nAnd innocence bewails the evil time.\n\nA second Pharaoh now o'er Israel see!\nA Herod[13] in the home of Liberty!\nWhere wing\u0115d Nemesis shall find her own,\nGathering the whirlwind[14] where the wind was sown.\n\nFriendless, unsheltered, forth the exiles go,\nLit by their burning homes athwart the snow,\nTill crimson footprints stamp the frozen path,\nAnd icy billows bar them from the wrath\nOf cruel fiends, whose fellows, masked as men,                  2820\nWhere languish sons of light in darksome den,\nGloat, while they guard, and flout with jest obscene\nThe helpless victims of that heartless scene;\nExulting foully, boastingly, the while,\nO'er deeds none else than devils would defile.\n\nTill patience, past enduring, dures no more;\nHeard, above jackal's yell, the lion's roar.\nThunders and flames Jehovah's threatening rod,\nAnd shakes the dungeon[15] with the wrath of God--\nA lightning tongue to scorch His cowering foes,                 2830\nAnd scourge them to the kennels whence they rose.\nWhen known such power, such might of word and will,\nSince Christ bade tempest sleep and waves be still?\n\nFree, whereso'er he wends, is hope renewed,\nDemons unhoused, disease and death subdued[16].\n\nWhere Sire of Waters[17] sweeps o'er silvery sands,\nPrest by the pilgrim feet of many lands,\nAloft, alone, a sacred city stands.\nCity, mother of many[18], none more rare,\nA blossoming waste shall yield, now burnt and bare;            2840\nCity, mother of empire, famed as fair,\nWhose birth the solemn muse must yet declare.\n\nWhere groaned the land with dread malarial ill,\nHealed by a hand divine, o'er vale and hill\nSee roof and dome and glittering fane arise!\nUnworldly link[19], rewelding Earth and Skies!\n\nThen comes Elijah's mightier mission[20] forth,\nAnd mortal vows take on immortal worth,\nKindling anew hope's ever living fires,\nTurning the mutual hearts of sons and sires,                    2850\nWhile doors to spirit dungeons open swing,\nThat love to light the living dead may bring!\n\nBut gaze from sinking unto soaring sun!\nBeyond the wave the conquering word hath won\nPast horrent hosts of Lucifer that rose,\nWith wrath of man, the message to oppose.\nVain strife, where fiends archangels would assail,\nWarring 'gainst mightiness that must prevail--\nPrevail to save a periled ship. 'Tis done;\nThe crisis past[21] with Albia stormed and won;                 2860\nEast floweth West--\"The Gathering\" hath begun.\n\nAnd now, to fruitful lands, 'neath favoring skies,\nBefriended by the just[22], the brave, the wise,\nTill truth, too mighty for the common ken,\nHath put a sword betwixt the souls of men,\nFares garnered Ephraim, earliest offering[23]\nOf Israel's hope, Idumea's harvesting.\n\nNations besprent with Abrahamic blood\nMeet there and mingle in that widening flood.\nImpelled by helping hand or hostile power,                      2870\nBy friendly looks or frowns that darkly lower,\nGathers the flock of faith from every land\nWhere roving Ephraim mixt with Japheth's band;\nPhilistia's shoulder bearing Israel's flight,\nThat Japheth, too, may come to Zion's light,\nAnd Joseph be o'er all his brethren blest,\nA saviour in his Egypt of the West[24],\nWhere corn and wine, 'mid famine, comfort life,\nWhere peace and plenty shame a world at strife,\nAnd, bending from the ice-barred North, shall come--            2880\nAs bent their stars in his, the dreamer's dome--\nAssyria's long lost captives[25], wending home.\n\nWestward, far westward, chase the lingering night,\nImpelling Spirit! Angel of the Light!\nWestward, still westward, till the morn shall burn\nIn high meridian glory; till shall turn\nFate's restless tide, re-rolling o'er the East,\nSpoiling the spoiler, spreading freedom's feast,\nFoiling dark anarchy, thy fellest foe,\nLand, chosen land! stunned, staggering 'neath its blow;         2890\nRallying the loyal[26] in a common cause,\nRending the eagle from the bear's red claws;\nHurling invasion backward o'er the Isles,\nBuilding anew upon the olden piles,\nBeginnings of the crowning commonhood--\nA modern Zion where the ancient stood.\n\nBackward, roll backward, river of the blood!\nBack to thy fountain, hurrying human flood--\nTo Adam's land, the far Edenic shore;\nFor last is first and old is new once more,                     2900\nAnd nations rise where nations fell before!\n\nJoseph, uprisen from the grave-like mound,\nHis ancient and inglorious battle ground[27],\nRetreads with modern step the painful path\nWhere erst he fled[28], a fugitive from wrath;\nFated to flee till ebbs that westward flow,\nBearing from Japheth bitter curse and blow,\nWhile patient heaven holds off the woeful fate\nThat cometh swift and layeth desolate\nThe powers that prey on Jacob--all that hate                    2910\nThe God of Joseph, and the just decree\nThat builds him here a boundless destiny.\n\nWestward, burn westward, morn divinely bright!\nMorn of Jehovah, morn of Jacob's might!\nBut stand thou still on Zion, glorious light!\nFor there must dawn the day that knows no night.\n\nBeginnings that have here in beauty stood,\nProne, as from withering fire or wasting flood,\nA little season wrecked and ruined lie[29],\nTill they that build put pride and passion by,                  2920\nAnd, taught by pain, through suffering's fiercest fires,\nPart with all lustful, covetous desires.\n\nWhen faith shall wear the armor without flaw,\nAnd union such as sainted Enoch saw[30]\nHonors the fullness of celestial law,\nThen--sword of God and blade of Gideon,\nDazzling, confounding, driving on and on,\nTill besomed as with fire the fated land,\nWhere Zion, guileless, glorious, shall stand,\nA terror only to her trembling foes[31],                        2930\nEnsign of peace and Eden of repose,\nWhere life's tree blossoms and light's fountain flows.\n\nMeanwhile her valiant ones, her tried and true\nDaughters and sons, shall they not dare and do?\nIn vain, alas! in vain of such to sing,\nWith trembling hand a tuneless harp I string.\nFor who can count the cost, the painful price,\nMeasure the sorrow and the sacrifice,\nRare spirits of a more than Spartan race\nCompelled their souls of halting dread to face?                 2940\nHarp of the Hebrew seer! Be thine to break\nThe muse's slumber, bid the world awake,\nAnd glow o'er deeds yet done for conscience' sake.\nWhat tongue than Zion's own can loose the spell?\nWhose voice than modern Leah's, Rachel's, tell\nThe story of a burden borne so well?\n\nBending, not breaking, 'neath thy load of care,\nSowing to joy, thou shalt not reap despair!\nPlanting the hope of human purity,\nThat righteousness may crown futurity,--                        2950\nPatience! endure! for pain shall bring thee power[32].\nTime but a dream--eternity thy dower.\nWhere perfect love casts forth the jealous fear,\nA diamond in thy diadem each tear;\nAnd every sigh that rent thy suffering breast,\nA wave of rapture on the shores of rest.\nMy lot as thine, purest of pure-in-heart!\nBe mine the bitter as the better part.\n\nBut sorrows else have shadowed all things there;\nThe voice of mourning drowns the voice of prayer.               2960\nDampened e'en now with death's prophetic dew,\nThy cold, pale brow, O fated, fair Nauvoo!\n\nRemains for thee no peace, for thine no rest,\nTill on the parching plain, the frozen crest;\nA desert land of unlocked mystery,\nFrowning on hope, and dumb to history.\n\nYet ere the burning wilderness be won,\nShines down on other deeds the shuddering sun.\nCity of Joseph[33]! Look! from 'leaguered walls,\nWhere Calvary's crimson light on Carthage falls!                2970\n\nEre murderous fate the martyr's bolt hath sped,\nWhile deepening darkness glooms a sky of lead,\nAnd thundrous threatenings tone their notes of dread,\nLooms to the fore an archangelic form,\nA sunlit summit shining o'er the storm;\nA towering rock above the rushing tide\nOf eager souls that surge on every side,\nWhere living waters from the fountain play,\nAnd glowing words light up the darkened way.\n\nUndaunted 'neath the shadow of his doom,                        2980\nCalm as a statue, solemn as a tomb,\nHeedless of self, while hoarsely rumbles near\nHate's fiery flood, that alien to all fear,\nThat more than man, nor less than godlike soul,\nErect upon life's summit, at death's goal,\nUnlocks time's portal, swings the future's gate,\nAnd opes to Ephraim's gaze his glorious fate.\n\nO diver in the days and years to be!\nSearching the caves of that prophetic sea,\nWhat bringest from the deeps of destiny?                        2990\n\n\n\n\nCANTO TEN\n\nThe Parted Veil[1]\n\n\n  Choice Seer, with spirit eye did he behold\n  The sanguine scene that told his tragic fate?\n  Surged by the flood of grief and shame that rolled\n  Above the murdered honor of a State[2],\n  Where innocence again fell prey to hate?\n  There be who say he visioned all to come--\n  Forsaken cities, weeping, desolate,\n  The desecrated fane, the blazing dome[3],\nThe weary wanderings far in quest of peace and home.\n\n  Saw, then, a tender hopeful tragedy                           3000\n  (Pathetic omen of his tribe's increase)\n  Uncurtained 'neath the star-hung canopy:\n  Babes, new-born babes[4], there slumbering in a fleece\n  Of moon-lit frost, as buds that bide release,\n  When winter casts its mantle white and cold,\n  Protecting life where life hath seemed to cease;\n  Frail lambs, fresh penned within the Saviour's fold,\nAnd, like Him, manger-nurst, homeless on earth's threshold.\n\n  Homeless a nursing nation, born e'en so--\n  Born in a day. O Day! and eyes of Night!                      3010\n  Watch now the \"little one\" \"a thousand\"[5] grow,\n  As grows the torrent from the trickling height,\n  The blaze of noonday from the dawning light;--\n  The birth-throes of an empire, whose blest reign,\n  Bounding from lowliness, soars past the sight\n  Of all save prophecy, while cities twain[6]\nSceptre the universe, with foot on land and main!\n\n  Whose but a prophet's eye such end could see?\n  Whose but a prophet's tongue the issue tell?--\n  A modern march of ancient destiny,                            3020\n  Another Exodus and Israel,\n  Bidding his bonds, his all, save hope, farewell;\n  Widening, 'mid alien wastes, true freedom's fame,\n  Where bondage, chained to darkness, fain would dwell[7];\n  And rearing temples to Jehovah's name,\nWhere looms the Aztec's altar[8], quenched of its ancient flame.\n\n  There bringing forth the promise of thy land,\n  O rare and wondrous West!--the prophecy\n  Of glittering cities strewn along thy strand,\n  O golden empire[9] of the sunset sea!                         3030\n  God-gifted Seer, while gazing endlessly,\n  Sawest thou an Eden on the desert brine[10],\n  Begirt with desolation's mystery,\n  Ere gusht the riven rock with milk and wine,\nWhere all was treeless waste and sun-baked alkaline?\n\n  Sawest thou, O prophet! till the pioneer\n  Builded his eagle nest, and pure and brave\n  Homed on the white-helmed peak and crystal mere?\n  O matchless land--the home their valor gave,\n  Mighty in will to bless, in work to save,                     3040\n  Redeemed, redeeming, all must own thy worth!\n  Slander may wound thee, tyranny enslave,\n  Still thou art mine, loved land of all the earth,\nLand of the honey-bee[11], land of my mortal birth!\n\n  Land prest by footprint of my pilgrim sire[12];\n  Land visioned by my more than sire, whose soul\n  Swept the far future with a glance of fire,\n  Bade hope, as memory, her page unroll;\n  Beheld uplifting, as a parted scroll,\n  The curtain from a kingdom yet to be,                         3050\n  Binding in one world-realms from pole to pole;\n  Saw monarchs bow, saw nations bend the knee,\nSaw dead and risen time take on eternity.\n\n  \"Hear me, my people[13]! I shall not be slain\n  While unfulfilled my mission? Then, like Him\n  Who holds my hand, linked in an endless chain,\n  Which cannot die, whose light can ne'er grow dim,\n  Must I return to Home and Elohim.\n  Though here I fain would linger--human choice!\n  If weal to friend or foe--ay, e'en to them,                   3060\n  Might purchased be, with my poor life the price,\nWelcome, thrice welcome death. I will the sacrifice.\n\n  \"Nor marvel at my mood. Could you but gaze\n  Upon the wonders of the worlds of God,\n  Where burn, amid the universal blaze,\n  The Father's fullness and the Son's abode,\n  Won by their feet who walk the rightful road,\n  Nor weary in well-doing; 'twere alone\n  Reward for all that here hath been your load.\n  Forgive--leave all to heaven, whose highest Throne            3070\nMade endless love to endless life the stepping stone.\n\n  \"Hearken, O House of Joseph! Here must end\n  My mortal toil. Now, as from Nebo's height[14],\n  I see, like him of old, my day descend.\n  But looms afar upon my sinking sight\n  Another Canaan. Clothe for pilgrim flight.\n  A Joshua cometh! Him let Israel heed,\n  And loyal be unto that council's right\n  On whom the Kingdom rolls; for they must lead\nTo where privation's hand shall sow dominion's seed.            3080\n\n  \"A glacier's might, your gathered strength shall stand,\n  Stalwart upon the mountains[15], and shall send\n  Swift messengers to sound o'er sea and land\n  Last warning to the nations. Hither wend\n  Awakening hosts, who eager hearing lend\n  While yet the voice of grace, the voice of God,\n  Summons the house of Abraham his friend;\n  Calls them the wave to cleave, the wild to plod,\nOn, on to that safe rest, ere falls the reckoning rod.\n\n  \"For war shall wound[16] this nation--rend it wide,           3090\n  And trample nations all. Anon shall slaves\n  'Gainst masters rise, and anarchy o'erride\n  Till tyranny be trodden as the paves,\n  Till patriot might puts forth its hand and saves\n  The crimsoned land from chaos. Hearken, all!\n  When ruin's host the blood-red banner waves,\n  Who heeded first the Gospel's warning call\nShall be the last of realms to crumble and to fall.\n\n  \"Britannia! Thou among the during ones,\n  A nursing mother unto Israel's might;                         4000\n  Foremost to send thy daughters and thy sons\n  From shores afar, from darkness unto light.\n  As thou hast favored truth and 'friended right,\n  Their tongues shall plead for thee in time to come,\n  And nerve thine arm when perilous thy plight.\n  Borne on thy shoulder o'er the billowing foam,\nJoseph and Judah find their heritage, their home.\n\n  \"I saw, while justice showed the vision dire,\n  Till mercy's hand let fall the lifted veil,\n  The goal of the ungodly--blood and fire,                      4010\n  Earthquake and whirlwind, pestilential hail\n  Smiting earth's face with desolating flail.\n  And this, the mere beginning of their woe,\n  Whose final fate a doom the damned bewail;\n  While they that follow Christ, anon shall go\nTo guide and save lost souls, groping in shades below.\n\n  \"Good fears not evil--grapples with it strong,\n  Hell turns to heaven, the unclean purifies;\n  For evil is but good, the right bent wrong.\n  No weakling unto loftiest worlds can rise;                    4020\n  No coward e'er hath scaled celestial skies;\n  'Tis strength that wins the goal of blessedness,\n  'Tis knowledge saves, 'tis wisdom glorifies;\n  Intelligence alone can lift and bless\nThe fallen, innocent till snared in sin's duress.\n\n  \"What matter, if my mortal race be run,\n  Where earth enfolds me to her mother breast?\n  While ye, my people--yonder setting sun\n  Points out your path. For you, no peace, no rest,\n  Till firm your weary feet upon the West,                      4030\n  Where, moveless as yon snowy spine of hills,\n  Befriended by the tempest, unopprest,\n  And bounteous as the sun that sends the rills\nTo bless the vales, God's first-born fold[17] His purpose fills.\n\n  \"Affliction here, but friendship there and peace;\n  (More cruel Christian white than savage red),\n  And in a day when warning tongues shall cease,\n  And plain be seen what prophets all have said;\n  When peace shall have no pillow for her head,\n  Save lofty heights where loyal hosts abound;                  4040\n  Brave sons of battling sires[18], who toiled and bled\n  That this might evermore be freedom's ground,\nShall give to you their strength God's Kingdom here to found.\n\n  \"Bide mountain-walled, my people! stalwart, strong,\n  Till poureth down from hallowed founts on high,\n  The might that doth to righteousness belong,\n  The might of faith, the power of purity--\n  Despair and terror to iniquity.\n  Then, Ephra-Judah, who the hand shall bind\n  That clears thy path before thee? Foes shall fly              4050\n  As driven dust, as ashes in the wind;\nThe crouching Lion springs, and He the prey shall find.\n\n  \"And by that power[19] shall Zion be redeemed,\n  Yea, with a mighty hand, an out-stretched arm,\n  With marvels, miracles, ne'er done nor dreamed\n  Since wonder oped her eyes. The world's alarm\n  Shall surge, an angry sea; but fear nor harm\n  Can hover near the conquering host of God.\n  'Gainst Lucifer's shall Michael's legions form,\n  Besoming the chosen soil with chastening rod,                 4060\nTill sainted towers arise on Eden's ancient sod.\n\n  \"The place appointed. Naught else is designed;\n  Naught else can heaven accept. Put forth the hand,\n  Plant stakes of Zion, tight her cords to bind,\n  Where'er ye move, O fated pilgrim band!\n  But bring forth Zion's self on Zion's land[20];\n  The consecrated soil, whereon ye stood\n  With me, of late, loyal while treason fanned\n  The flame still thirsting for a martyr's blood.\nThere build, in time to be, a city unto God.                    4070\n\n  \"Nor there alone; for all is Zion's land,\n  North unto South, East unto Western wave,\n  Far as the hemisphere's wide wings expand,\n  She sits, a sovereign queen, ice-crowned, to lave\n  Her glowing hands in tropic tides, while brave\n  Her snowy feet in faith the southern sea.\n  Arm patient, slow to smite, yet swift to save,\n  A friend to right, a foe to tyranny.\nAnd there be living now who then shall live and see.\n\n  \"While here the glory of the Common Good[21],                 4080\n  Shadowed and symboled by a patriot band,\n  Whose triumph wrought for human brotherhood,\n  Extending that high cause from strand to strand,\n  Shall bring deliverance unto every land.\n  But anarchy would foil the lofty aim,\n  The peace, the union, by Jehovah planned;\n  Wherefore 'tis doomed to failure and to shame,\nWith all unrighteous rule, whate'er its place or name.\n\n  \"The sceptered harlot,[22] throned on human seas,\n  Chief link of Satan's world-encircling chain;                 4090\n  The secret craft and crime--iniquities\n  Whereby the Wicked One extends his reign;\n  All these must perish from the Lord's domain,\n  Nor aught of guile be found His Kingdom through.\n  Truth's sun hath risen--all lesser lights must wane;\n  And wrong and false that masks as right and true,\nShall feel the scourge of flame that Sodom's sin o'erthrew.\n\n  \"More would I tell that in my bosom burns,\n  But bigot fires would flame as ne'er before;\n  For truth, rejected, friend to traitor turns,                 5000\n  And damns where fain 'twould save. Six mounting o'er,\n  My spirit to a seventh realm[23] did soar,\n  And saw and heard--Ah, would that I might say!\n  Though memory but renewed a former lore,\n  What all may learn when full the dawning day,\nWhen twinkling, twilight faith to knowledge shall give way.\n\n  \"Hope not till then to have my history,\n  What life hath scribed to scan; nor tongue nor pen\n  Can tell the tale, dispel the mystery,\n  That hides me from the dim, dull gaze of men.                 5010\n  Sojourning here, within this shadowed scene,\n  A medial stage, a mortal compromise,\n  The spirit's might, the body's weight, between,\n  Deem not that e'en earth's wisest can be wise,\nTill heaven the blindness touch that seals all human eyes.\n\n  \"One little fold I lift of that vast veil:\n  How came he God, to whom all gods must bow--\n  The very Sire, whom all the sons now hail\n  As mightiest of the mighty? I avow\n  That even He was once as we are now;                          5020\n  That we like Him can be--yea, by degrees,\n  Mount unto loftiest heights, till on each brow\n  Be writ the Name of Names. Not angels these,\nBut Gods, e'en Sons of God, through all eternities.\n\n  \"Weighed in the balance here, nor wanting found;\n  Tried in the fire, triumphant from the test;\n  Though wrung their hearts, their finest feelings ground,\n  Betwixt life's upper, nether, millstones prest,\n  Till proved, of good and brave, the bravest, best.\n  Less faith than theirs who follow Abraham,                    5030\n  Honoring o'er all Jehovah's high behest,\n  Uplifts no gate of that Jerusalem--\nThe Bosom of the Gods--the Glory of I AM.[24]\n\n  \"Bide valiant here, as ye were valiant there.\n  Whence came delightsome bodies, soaring minds,\n  Aspiring thrones to win and crowns to wear?\n  Spring not all seeds according to their kinds?\n  Each act, each word, each thought, delivers, binds,\n  Dwarfs or develops. Man's all-crowning state\n  His own creation. What the Judgment finds,                    5040\n  The soul reveals; and weal or woe the fate,\n'Tis freedom's chainless choice, for all on will must wait.\n\n  \"Stand as ye stood, my legion brave, what time\n  The starry host, celestial symphony,\n  Choraled the anthem seraphic, sublime,\n  To the spelled ear of all eternity!\n  Lifted your hands for light and liberty[25],\n  When fraud with force progression's path would pave.\n  Fought we with Michael, drove the dragon, he\n  Who planned to seize all worlds, all worlds enslave,          5050\nAnd would have damned, destroyed, what Christ came down\n      to save.\n\n  \"As now, in lesser liberty's abode,\n  Incarnate spirit of fell tyranny\n  Would trample on the type of Freedom's Code[26],\n  Befriending human right where'er it be.\n  But hear me, Heaven! Come life, come death, to me,\n  Jehovah's captain, in His name and fear,\n  I vow to Him His people shall be free--\n  Ay, free all men, as in that former sphere,                   5060\nWhen hurled from yon dread height the power of Lucifer.\n\n  \"Fear not--Truth's cause shall triumph. Sown the seed\n  Whose harvest knows no failure, no delay.\n  Crooked shall straighten to the future need,\n  And crudeness unto culture shall give way;\n  And part shall change to perfect in that day.\n  Firm, strong--not smooth, the building's basic stone,\n  Hidden from view; while rests the heavenly ray\n  On polished wall, on gleaming spire and cone:\nJacob's, not Esau's hand[27] shall rear Messiah's throne.       5070\n\n  \"Great the beginning--glorious the end;\n  Elijah comes, the Kingdom to complete[28].\n  Farewell! This from your father, brother, friend.\n  No more your prophet, patriarch, ye meet,\n  Till here all prophets, patriarchs, ye greet,\n  Mingling with Gods, while heaven on earth shall dwell,\n  To drink the wine of wisdom at His feet,\n  The Husbandman and Vine of Israel.\nThus saith the God of Jacob--Joseph's God. Farewell!\"\n\n---\n\n  Then sank to rest, his mortal mission done.                   5080\n  Hark to those shouts that hail a homing king!\n  A crimson aureole rounds the sinking sun,\n  Omen of golden dawn swift following;\n  Death's winter promise of eternal spring--\n  Celestial Edens, empires, throne on throne,\n  And worlds once waste, redeemed, there blossoming.\n  Future now present, and the past unflown,\nWhile all unguised, unveiled, life, death, earth, time, are known.\n\n\n\n\nEPILOGUE\n\nThe Angel Ascendant[1]\n\n\nBut what are life, death, earth, and time to thee,\nEternal Truth? Thou goest on for aye.                           5090\nLives, deaths, earths, times, their plurals multifold,\nThese but the bubbles on thy boundless wave,\nThe sands of thy great glass, the flickering gleams\nOf life that knows nor origin nor end.\nThese but the sparks flung from thy flaming forge,\nThe falling star-dust of thy firmament,\nWhere stars go down that straightway suns may rise.\n\nEach ray of light, each principle of power,\nEach epoch-measuring hap of history,\nHad it a tongue would it not testify:                           6000\n\"There cometh after me a mightier;\nI but prepare the way his face before;\nI but baptize with water, he with fire?\"\nTill now tells not the past this oft-told tale,\nWhich yet the future shall proclaim and prove?\n\nThou Angel, there ascending from the East,\nWho criest unto four, Hurt not, but spare,\nTill we the servants of our God have sealed!\nWho art thou and why risest now to view?\n\n\"I am that Voice which crieth in the waste;                     6010\nThat wandereth through all worlds, invisible;\nThat sayeth unto all, Prepare, prepare,\nBehold He cometh! Go ye out to meet.\n\n\"As His, my goings forth are from of old:\nA minister to Earth from Eden's hour,\nReopening the guarded heavenward way,\nWhereby the fallen Michael rose again[2];\nLifting to rest the city sanctified[3],\nAwaiting there my mandate to descend.\n\n\"Wrought I through him whom Gods name Gabriel,                  6020\nThe Noah of a world once water-doomed,\nBy whom was earth besprent with life anew,\nNor less with light from truth's rekindled flame,\nStill burning, though with error's incense dimmed,\nAnd fouled with alien fire[4] in many lands.\n\n\"Wrought I through him whom men call Abraham,\nThe root of Shiloh[5], righteous branch of Shem;\nQuarry of Israel, rock whence he was hewn;\nBlesser of races with believing blood[6],\nSprinkler of spirits faithful o'er the world,                   6030\nOceans of nations, fountainward that flow,\nAs the soiled floods unto the filtering sea.\n\n\"Led I when Israel cast Egypt's chain[7],\nAnd cleft the wave 'twixt bonds and liberty;\nAs lead I shall when one the Shepherd loved\nBringeth the sheep from long captivity[8].\nSmote I by him who carved to Canaan's land,\nWhose sword[9] gave Israel his inheritance,\nWhose high behest e'en day and night obeyed,\nOn Gibeon, in the vale of Ajalon.                               6040\nBlazed I through him who flamed as fire from heaven\nAt Kishon's brook[10], where sunk the pride of Baal;\nSealer, unsealer, of the sending skies,\nRenewer of the worship primal, pure.\nMy hand in his, the anointed, named ere born[11],\nTo sunder brazen-gated Babylon,\nForeshadowing the great deliverance\nWrought out by Him who died all worlds to win.\n\n\"Then burst the long sealed canopy[12] o'er him\nRevealed to whom were holy Sire and Son,                        6050\nAnd angel guardian of the book of gold;\nThat truth might vanquish error, and once more\nBe known to men the true and living God.\n\n\"When spake the angels of authority,\nMine was the hand that gave the Kingdom's keys[13],\nLifting an ensign for the gathering;\nBeginning of an ending yet to be,\nWhen I a second time shall set my hand,\nJudah, with Joseph, joining to the fold,\nAnd long lost tribes and remnants ransoming.                    6060\n\n\"The martyred Seer who gave up life to give\nThe warning unto Ephraim, God's first born,\nCame I to him the Abrahamic keys[14],\nThe Abrahamic covenant, to restore;\nThat Jacob, to the end increasing still,\nMight be as sands and stars for multitude.\n\n\"How tell the sum[15] of all my ministries?\nWrought I through him who gave to East the West,\nThrough him whose pen of fire proclaimed it free,\nThrough him whose blade the blood-bought soil redeemed.         6070\nCame I to thee, lone muser on the mount,\nMy minstrel--I thy muse. Dost know me now?\n\n\"All, all that make for freedom and for peace,\nThat loose the captive, and the lost restore,\nThat teach, in part or whole, eternal truth,\nBy science, art, or might of melody;--\nAll these my ministers, who aid my aims.\nElias I, their tasks Elias-given.\n\n\"Spirit of Progress, speeding on for aye;\nGleam of the glory of Omnipotence;                              6080\nHand of the Arm Omnific--cause of all;\nA mighty making way for Mightier,\nComing, as Jacob upon Esau's heel[16],\nEternity upon the trail of time.\n\n\"Jehovah's ancient covenant Messenger,\nCome I again, again, His courier,\nTill plenal powers of great Melchizedek\nThe fullness of the glory here unfold,\nWhelming, O Earth! as once with watery wave,\nThy form with fire, from founts of heavenly flame;              6090\nSealing, unsealing, binding o'er and o'er,\nTill all is order, as of old ordained.\n\n\"Then shall the Watchman on the Wall proclaim:\n'Be glad, O Zion and Jerusalem!\nRejoice, O Earth! No longer grieve and mourn.\nEnded the empire of iniquity,\nBroken oppression's rod forevermore.\nGone are the gold, the silver, and the bronze,\nThe conquering iron, and the crumbling clay;\nWorld-wide, heaven-high, the Stone of Israel stands;            7000\nThe Chaldean image as the Chaldean dream[17]!'\n\n\"And who is She that looketh forth sublime,\nClothed with the sun, shod with the moon's pale beam,\nHer matchless brow bediademed with stars?\nFairer than eve, mightier than bursting morn,\nAs noon-day majesty magnificent?\n\n\"Perfection, heaven-retained unto this hour,\nImmanuel's Spouse, the glorious Bride of Christ,\nArrayed in all her garments beautiful,\nAdorned and ready[18], waiting for her Lord!                    7010\n\n\"Now, Heaven's loud trumpets, all Earth's secrets tell!\nDeath and hell's dungeons, liberate your dead!\nFor 'mid the shouts of saints, the risen, the changed,\nDay dawns, hour strikes, skies burst--the King descends!\n\n\"Await that time destroyers four[19], who give\nThe Gospel, God's last warning unto man;\nAwait likewise the thousands, twelve times twelve[20],\nWho for the coming King the way prepare.\nHold I the signet of the Living God--\nLift unto light, or hurl to darkness down.                      7020\nThe hour is imminent. Heed well the sign:\nMark when the Bow's bright promise[21] is withdrawn!\"\n\n---\n\nEnough, I know thee, Strong and mighty One,\nThat standest in the presence of the Lord!\nThat leadest Israel from bondage old,\nThat liftest up the Ensign unto all!\nKnow thee, thou Muse and Minstrel of the Mount,\nThou Harper on the Hills of Melody?\nI know thee, and am here to work thy will,\nTo hymn thy praise, perchance behold thy power,                 7030\nWhen, iris-crowned and clothed as with a cloud,\nThy face the sun, thy feet as pillared fire,\nThou comest down from Heaven, and swearest by\nEternity, that Time shall be no more!\n\nAncient of Ages! Angel of the East!\nSpirit of Promise! Prophet of the Dawn[22]!\n\n\n\n\nNOTES\n\n\nExplanation: The first figure at the beginning of the Note indicates\nthe word or phrase marked in the text; the second figure gives the\nnumber of the line in which it is found.\n\nNOTE TO DEDICATION. The Dedication is to President Joseph F. Smith,\nsixth in succession to the leadership of the Latter-day Saints,\nnephew to Joseph the Prophet, and son of Hyrum the Patriarch, who\nwere martyred at Carthage, Illinois, June 27, 1844. The poem made its\nappearance during President Smith's administration, and the author\nowes much to his kind encouragement and appreciation.\n\nNOTE TO THEME. The words of the Theme are a passage from the \"Key to\nJohn's Revelation\" (Doctrine and Covenants 77:9).\n\nNOTE TO PRELUDE. The Author, while ill, prayed that he might live to\nproduce a work that would continue his ministry as a teacher after\nhis mortal tongue was stilled. The beginning of the answer to his\nprayer was an immediate inspiration to write this poem.\n\n---\n\nCANTO ONE\n\n1--Title: **As From a Dream.** The subject of this Canto is the\nauthor's spiritual awakening.\n\n2--20. **Baal and Astoreth** (also rendered Ashtoreth). Pagan\ndeities, frequently mentioned in the Old Testament. They were\nworshiped by the idolatrous Israelites. The Prophet Elijah's\ncontroversy with the priests of Baal is one of the most dramatic\nepisodes in sacred history. (I Kings 18:19-40). Baal was the sun god,\nchief male divinity of the Phoenicians; Ashtoreth, representing the\nmoon, a goddess of the Philistines--the same as Astarte of the\nZidonians. The corresponding deities among the Greeks and Romans were\nZeus or Jupiter and Aphrodite or Venus.\n\n3--60. **Truth's Triple Key.** The Spirit of Truth, revealing past,\npresent and future.\n\n4--86. **Ambrosial Gardens.** The Gardens of the Gods--Heaven.\n\n5--92. **Paradise.** The Spirit World, a place of rest for the\nrighteous, awaiting resurrection and exaltation to glorious spheres\nbeyond. (Alma, 40:11-14; \"Joseph Smith's Teachings,\" pp. 184, 185;\nKey to Theology, 14.)\n\n6--101. **Love's Eyes.** Love is usually represented as a blind boy,\nCupid, shooting his arrows aimlessly. Love, when spiritually\nenlightened, is no longer blind, but has a definite purpose in view.\n\n7--111. **Lethean Ground.** Lethe, in classic mythology, signifies\noblivion. It was the name of a river in Hades, of which the dead\ndrank and forgot all.\n\n8--117. **O Thou, Of Beauty!** The stanza beginning with these words\nis an apostrophe to Woman.\n\n9--130. **Apple of Ashes.** On the shores of the Dead Sea there\ngrows, it is said, a fruit resembling the apple, beautiful and\ninviting to the eye, but turning to ashes at the touch.\n\n10--167. **Equally May Win.** The vanquished, as well as the\nvictorious, may gain, through experience, development.\n\n11--174. **What Soul Can Grow?** Pride, greed, hate, and all other\nperverted passions, are as weeds and thorns in the garden of the\nheart. It is fair to presume that the Saviour, when he exhorted his\ndisciples to forgive and love their enemies, had in view the welfare\nof the disciples themselves. It was more for their sake than for the\nsake of their enemies, that He gave the exhortation.\n\n12--185. **The Spirit of the Infinite.** The Holy Spirit, assumed\nthroughout the poem to be acting through \"Elias,\" the Genius of\nProgress, who also has his agents or instruments.\n\n13--219. **Time's Hills and Vales.** A metaphor suggested by the Book\nof Abraham (3:18, 19).\n\n---\n\nCANTO TWO\n\n1--Title: **The Soul of Song.** Herein the author is represented as\nsoliloquising upon his native mountains, where he meets the Soul of\nSong and is inspired to sing the epic of time and eternity. As the\nSoul of Song, \"Elias\" makes his first appearance in the action of the\npoem.\n\n2--261. **The Sacred Garden.** The Garden of Eden.\n\n3--263. **Titan Stand.** The Titans were a group of mythical giants,\ndescended from the gods. (Greek and Roman mythology.)\n\n4--276. **Orphean Boon.** Orpheus, son of the Muse Calliope, received\nfrom Apollo or Minerva a lyre upon which he played so skillfully that\nrocks and trees were moved, rivers ceased to flow, and savage beasts\nforgot their wildness, charmed by the wonderful sounds. (Ibid.)\n\n5--281. **Oh, Were My Words!** A paraphrase of Job 19:23, 24.\n\n6--288. **Melting Gift.** The power of speech or of song.\n\n7--384. **Voice of the Stars.** Another reference to Job (38:7).\n\n8--390. **The Body's Bard.** This allusion is to poets who exalt the\nmaterial over the spiritual, the sensuous over the intellectual, the\nbody of things over the soul of things.\n\n9--407. **This Most Ancient Shore.** Modern science, confirming\nmodern revelation, is beginning to regard America as the Old World,\nnot the New.\n\n10--408. **And Man Shall Rise.** Zion, City of the Pure-in-Heart, is\nto stand upon the ancient site of the Garden of Eden.\n\n11--415. **Shepherd Psalmist.** David, who played before King Saul,\nexorcising the evil spirit which held the monarch bound. (I Samuel\n18:10 and 19:9.)\n\n---\n\nCANTO THREE\n\n1--Title: **Elect of Elohim.** Elohim, or Eloheim, the Hebrew plural\nfor God. To the modern Jew it means the plural of majesty, not of\nnumber; but to the Latter-day Saint it signifies both. As here used\nit stands for \"The Council of the Gods,\" or, as in Psalms 82:1, \"The\nCongregation of the Mighty.\" In that council or congregation was\nelected, before Earth was formed, the Redeemer of the World. (Pearl\nof Great Price--Moses 4:1-4; Abraham 3:22-28; Compendium p. 285.)\nThis Canto glimpses the choosing of Messiah, the rebellion of\nLucifer, the Saviour's descent to Earth, his crucifixion and return\nto Glory. It is the beginning of the poem proper.\n\n2--450. **Olea's Silver Beam.** Olea, according to the Book of\nAbraham, is Moon; Shinehah (Shinea) Sun; and Kokaubeam, Stars. Kolob,\naccording to the same authority, is a great governing planet \"nigh\nunto the throne of God.\" (Abraham 3; D. and C. 76:25, 28.)\n\n3--504. **Mighty Michael.** Michael the Archangel, leader of the\nhosts of Heaven against Lucifer and his rebellious legions, became\nAdam and fell from an immortal to a mortal state that he might become\nthe progenitor of the human family.\n\n4--516. **Tried Souls.** In \"Mormon\" theology \"soul\" means body and\nspirit combined, but in general literature, and especially poetry,\n\"soul\" and \"spirit\" are synonyms.\n\n5--522. **The Stepping-Stone.** God's children, such as kept the\nfirst or spirit estate, were given bodies upon this planet, thus\nbecoming souls, capable of eternal increase and advancement. (Abraham\n3:26.) Two-thirds of the spirits then populating the Spirit World\nwere found worthy of opportunities for experience and development in\nmortality, while one-third--those who rebelled--were denied that\nprivilege. (Compendium p. 288.)\n\n6--528. **The Love That Hath Redeemed All Worlds.** The Gospel of the\nChrist, the highest expression of God's love for man, has saved many\nworlds, and is destined to save many more. (Moses 1:33-39.) But the\nGospel is more than a means of escape from impending ills; it existed\nbefore man had need of salvation. A divine plan for human progress,\nembracing both the Fall and the Redemption, it was framed in the\nheavens before this earth was organized, and is a free gift from God\nto man. Man, however, to avail himself of its benefits, must yield\nobedience to its requirements. Redemption (resurrection) comes\nunconditionally, but salvation and exaltation depend upon human works\nas well as upon divine favor. A soul may be redeemed--raised from the\ndead--and yet condemned at the final judgment for evil deeds done in\nthe body. Likewise may a soul be redeemed and saved, and yet come\nshort of the glory that constitutes exaltation. To redeem, save and\nglorify is the threefold purpose of the Gospel of Christ. The English\nword \"Gospel\" comes from the Anglo-Saxon \"Godspell\" or God-Story--the\nstory of God. In its fullest sense it signifies everything connected\nwith the redemptive career of that Divine Being who gave His life\nthat man might eternally live.\n\n7--548. **Exception Scorns.** Lucifer, who fain would have been the\nRedeemer, proposed to save by coercive methods, involving the\ndestruction of human agency, and demanded as his reward the honor\nthat belongs to God. (Moses 4:1-4; Abraham 3:22-28)\n\n8--560. **My Messenger.** It was Jehovah the God of Israel who became\nJesus of Nazareth and died to redeem mankind (D. and C. 110:1-4). He\nis Son Ahman, concerning whom Orson Pratt, citing an unpublished\nrevelation, says: \"What is the name of God in the pure language? The\nanswer says 'Ahman.' What is the name of the Son of God? Answer, 'Son\nAhman, the greatest of all the parts of God, excepting Ahman.' What\nis the name of men? 'Son Ahman,' is the answer.\" (Journal of\nDiscourses, Vol. II, p. 342.)\n\n9--562. **Thy Face Before.** An allusion to Elias, the lesser going\nbefore the greater.\n\n10--571. **My Friend.** Abraham, the friend of God, and father of the\nfaithful.\n\n11--572. **Idumea.** The World--here used as a synonym for Earth.\n\n12--589. **This Wandering Planet Bring.** \"This earth will be rolled\nback into the presence of God and crowned with celestial\nglory.\"--Joseph Smith (Compendium, p. 288).\n\n13--613. **The Hour of Noon.** The Meridian Dispensation.\n\n14--615. **Light's Sun and Moon.** Christ, the light of the sun, moon\nand stars, and the power by which they were made. (D. and C. 88:7, 8,\n9.)\n\n15--619. **Elias? Yea and Nay.** John the Baptist, forerunner of the\nChrist, was an Elias, a restorer; but, according to Joseph Smith, not\nthe Elias who is to restore all things. There are many Eliases,\nJoseph says: \"When God sends a man into the world to prepare for a\ngreater work, holding the keys of the power of Elias, it was called\nthe doctrine of Elias even from the early ages of the world.\"\n(Compendium, p. 281.)\n\n16--621. **Learned to Shine.** Before the Twelve Apostles were\nchosen, John the Baptist proclaimed the Lamb of God, and said\nconcerning Him: \"He must increase, and I must decrease.\" John was\ntherefore as the waning Moon in the presence of the rising Sun.\n\n17--640. **A City Doomed.** Jerusalem, over which the Saviour wept,\nprophesying its downfall. (Matthew 23:37-39.)\n\n18--656. **Gloom-Wrapt Gethsemane.** The Saviour's agony in the\nGarden of Gethsemane is an incident familiar to every reader of the\nNew Testament.\n\n19--675. **Immanuel.** One of the titles of the Saviour, meaning \"God\nwith us.\"\n\n---\n\nCANTO FOUR\n\n1--Title: **Night and the Wilderness.** This part of the poem is an\nallegory of the Christian or Meridian Dispensation, following the\ndeath of Jesus and his forerunner; portraying the mission of the\nComforter, and showing the departure from the primitive Faith, after\nthe passing of the apostolic Twelve, one of whom--the Church having\ngone into the Wilderness--remains to testify of things to come. The\n\"Night\" is the spiritual night that followed the setting of the Sun\nof Righteousness--a night lit by Moon and Stars, with lesser lights\ntwinkling through the Dark Ages and onward into modern times. The\n\"Wilderness\" is the world invisible. (D. and C. 88:66.)\n\n2--688. **An Eagle's Wings.** The Roman Empire, emblemized by the\nEagle, dominated the then known world.\n\n3--696. **Peace to Flow.** \"(I) The immense field covered by the\nconquests of Alexander gave to the civilized world a unity of\nlanguage, without which it would have been, humanly speaking,\nimpossible for the earliest preachers to have made known the good\ntidings in every land which they traversed. (II) The rise of the\nRoman Empire created a political unity which reflected in every\ndirection the doctrines of the new faith. (III) The dispersion of the\nJews prepared vast multitudes of Greeks and Romans for the unity of a\npure morality and a monotheistic faith. The Gospel emanated from the\ncapital of Judea; it was preached in the tongue of Athens; it was\ndiffused through the empire of Rome; the feet of its earliest\nmissionaries traversed the solid structure of undeviating roads by\nwhich the Roman legionaries--'those massive hammers of the whole\nearth'--had made straight in the desert a highway for our God.\nSemite and Aryan had been unconscious instruments in the hands of God\nfor the spread of a religion which, in its first beginnings, both\nalike detested and despised. The letters of Hebrew and Greek and\nLatin inscribed above the cross were the prophetic and unconscious\ntestimony of three of the world's noblest languages to the undying\nclaims of Him who suffered to obliterate the animosities of the\nnations which spoke them, and to unite them all together in the one\ngreat Family of God.\"--Dean Farrar, in \"The Life and Work of St.\nPaul,\" abridged edition, Book II, pp. 61, 62.\n\n4--706. **She-Wolf's Might.** The She-Wolf, traditionally the nurse\nof Romulus and Remus, who founded Rome, was also an emblem of that\nworld-conquering power, which, though eventually it persecuted the\nChristians, at first protected them from their Jewish oppressors.\nJudah's emblem was the Lion. As for the remaining figure in the\nallusion, it is written that the Saviour said to his disciples: \"I\nsend you forth as lambs among wolves.\"\n\n5--707. **Iron-Limbed.** The phrases \"iron-limbed,\" \"brazen-loin,\"\n\"silver-breasted,\" \"golden Babylon,\" characterize respectively the\nRoman, Graeco-Macedonian, Medo-Persian, and Babylonian empires,\nwhich, in reverse order, ruled successively the ancient world.\nBeginning with Babylon, the \"head of gold,\" these four universal\npowers figure in the Prophet Daniel's interpretation of\nNebuchadnezzar's dream (Daniel 2).\n\n6--713. **Asian Kin.** Alexander the Great extended his conquests as\nfar eastward as India, whose native inhabitants claim kinship with\nEuropean peoples through a common Aryan ancestry. If this claim be\ntrue, then the Hindoos, like the Europeans, are descended from\nJapheth, the eldest son of Noah, and consequently are \"Gentiles\"--a\nword springing from \"Gentilis,\" meaning \"of a nation,\" that is, a\nnation not of Israel.\n\n7--718. **Kurush.** Cyrus, founder of the Medo-Persian empire.\n\n8--730. **Lofty Vineyards.** D. and C. 88:51-61.\n\n9--731. **Spirit Moon and Speaking Stars.** The Holy Ghost and the\nApostolic Twelve.\n\n10--732. **The Woman Wonderful.** The Church of Christ, represented\nby a Woman (Revelation 12), and referred to in other places as the\nBride, the Lamb's Wife.\n\n11--736. **Glory's Symboling.** Sun, moon and stars, symbolizing\ncelestial, terrestrial, and telestial glories. (D. and C. 76:96-98.)\n\n12--742. **Vicegerent.** The Comforter, concerning whom Jesus said,\n\"It is needful that I go, or He will not come unto you.\" In other\nwords, the greater Light had to depart, before the lesser could shine\nin its fulness.\n\n13--743. **The Unembodied One.** Says Joseph the Seer: \"The Father\nhas a body of flesh and bones, as tangible as man's; the Son also;\nbut the Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit.\" (D. and C. 130:22.)\n\n14--748. **After and Ere.** God and Christ, the Father and the Son,\nby the power of the Holy Ghost created all things, and by that power\nwill raise all from the dead.\n\n15--756. **Prophet Still Pleading.** The Spirit of Prophecy, typified\nby John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness.\n\n16--774. **Those Fluent Stars.** The Twelve Apostles, oracles of God\nand crown of the Church of Christ. (Rev. 12:1.)\n\n17--781. **Save Haply One.** John the Beloved. (John 21:20-23; D.\nand C. 7 and 77.)\n\n18--789. **Leading the Lost.** It is believed that John the Revelator\nwill lead the Lost Tribes from \"The Land of the North.\" (D. and C.\n77:14; Rev. 10:8-11.)\n\n19--806. **The Man-Child.** The Man-Child of the Apocalypse (Rev.\n12:5) represents the Priesthood--divine authority--which was taken\nfrom the Earth, with the fulness of the Gospel, after the passing of\nthe Apostles.\n\n20--815. **Japheth Sways.** Gentile domination over Israel,\nparticularly in those nations where the Jews have been and are still\noppressed.\n\n21--820. **Antaeus-Like.** Antaeus was a fabled giant, vanquished by\nHercules. Each time that Hercules threw him the giant gained fresh\nstrength from coming in contact with the ground.\n\n22--822. **Conquering His Dust-Adoring Conqueror.** The modern Jew is\nsaid to hold the purse-strings of the world.\n\n23--831. **That Gentile Hosts Might See.** Saul of Tarsus, afterwards\nPaul the Apostle, persecuted the Church of Christ before his\nconversion (Acts 9:1-19). Thus was typified the spiritual blindness\nof Israel, which caused the Gospel to be carried to the Gentiles.\nPaul, the principal agent for their illumination, declares:\n\"Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the\nGentiles be come in.\" (Rom. 11:25.)\n\n24--832. **Martyred, Immolate.** Israel's dispersion, like Adam's\nfall and Christ's crucifixion, was part of a mighty plan for the\npromotion of the human race. Adam fell that mortal man might be.\nChrist died to burst the bands of death and make the fall effectual\nunto the higher ends ordained. The children of Israel were scattered\nover the world, in order that the Gospel might make its way more\nreadily among all peoples. The history of Israel is the history of a\nmartyred nation, suffering for the welfare of other nations, whatever\nmay be said of the transgressions of the chosen people, which\noccasioned and justified the calamities that came upon them.\n\n25--841. **From 'Neath the Yoke.** The future redemption of the Negro\nrace.\n\n26--843. **See and Hear His Risen Lord.** The House of Israel is\nprivileged to receive the personal ministrations of the Saviour,\nwhile the Gentiles are ministered to by the Holy Ghost. (III Nephi\n15:23.)\n\n27--847. **In the Mire.** Beginning of the Christian departure from\nthe true Faith.\n\n28--850. **The Heaven-Lit Torch.** The Light of the Gospel, enjoyed\nby the primitive Christians, though compelled to hide from their\nRoman persecutors and worship God on mountain tops and in the\ncatacombs.\n\n29--852. **Incense * * * Diana's Shrine.** Diana was a deity\nworshiped by the Romans. \"Incense\"--metaphorically the vain\nphilosophies, traditions and customs, adopted by the false Church\nthat came up in the place of the true Church and paganized itself in\norder to be popular with the world.\n\n30--855. **Shearing Compromise.** The result, spiritually, of the\nenthronement of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman\nEmpire, A. D. 324.\n\n31--861. **East from West.** The pseudo Church, as well as the Empire\nof the Caesars, divided itself into East and West, with\nConstantinople and Rome as the capital cities.\n\n32--874. **She Was Wont.** \"She\" stands for the true Church of Christ.\n\n33--880. **Crimson Courtesan.** The Scarlet Woman described by John\nthe Revelator (Rev. 17).\n\n34--900. **Till the Judgment Sits.** A reference to Daniel 7:21-27.\n\n35--902. **Glory Lift the Gloom.** Messiah's second coming.\n\n36--903. **The Moonlike One.** The Holy Spirit, ruling the Night of\nAges, after the Light of the World has departed.\n\n37--908. **Impelling to All Action.** The impelling power of the\nSpirit of God is interestingly set forth in I Nephi 13:10-19. See\nalso Lowell's poems \"Columbus\" and \"A Glance Behind the Curtain.\"\n\n38--951. **Wayward Son of Deity.** Napoleon and other conquerors type\nthe class of characters here described.\n\n39--973. **Some Said Jeremias.** When the Saviour inquired, \"Whom do\nmen say that I am?\" Peter answered \"Some say Thou art Elias, and some\nsay Jeremias.\" Elias and Jeremias are Greek forms of the Hebrew names\nElijah and Jeremiah. Joseph Smith, however, drew a distinction\nbetween the spirit of Elias and the spirit of Elijah. (Compendium,\npp. 281-283.)\n\n40--983. **Mirror and Model of Humanity.** \"God created man in his\nown image.\" (Gen. 1:27.)\n\n41--997. **Incomprehensible.** So modern Christians contend\nrespecting Deity. It is true only in part. God's unrevealed infinite\nfulness is of course incomprehensible to the finite mind. But what He\nhas revealed concerning Himself is not incomprehensible. Else why did\nHe reveal it?\n\n42--1008. **Each as a Star.** The Jewish or Mosaic Dispensation shed\nlight that prepared the world for a greater--the Christian\nDispensation; which, in its turn, made ready for one greater\nstill--the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times. This is the\nsignificance of \"Elias.\" (Compendium, p. 281.)\n\n43--1020. **A Weapon for the Right.** Such writers as Voltaire,\nPaine, and Ingersoll, subserve the cause of Christ by shattering\nfalse traditions, erroneously supposed by many to be true teachings\nof the Saviour and his Apostles.\n\n---\n\nCANTO FIVE\n\n1--Title: **The Messenger of Morn.** The fore part of this Canto,\ndown to and including the line, \"Out, out of her, my people, saith\nyour God,\" summarizes the message borne by the modern Prophet. The\ncurtain now rises upon the last act of the redemptive drama--the\nfinal restoration of the Gospel; Joseph the Seer, as the Elias of the\nscene, heralding the tidings of the approaching millennial reign.\n\n2--1052. **Whence Ye Were Hewn.** An allusion to Isaiah 51:1-3.\n\n3--1060. **Wastes of Unbelief.** Gentile or heathen lands, refreshed\nby the sprinkled blood of Israel--the blood that believes--and by\nspiritual visitations that accompany or follow such dispersions.\n\n4--1061. **Japheth, Thy Planet Pales.** Japheth stands for the\nGentiles, whose \"fulness\" now \"comes in.\"\n\n5--1077. **Mother of Centuries.** Time, as distinguished from\nEternity (though technically eternity includes time), comprises seven\nthousand years, or seventy centuries, covered by seven Gospel\ndispensations. The Quorum of the Seventy, with the presiding First\nCouncil, is a probable typing in this connection.\n\n6--1079. **Teach Them to Be One.** \"It is necessary, in the ushering\nin of the dispensation of the fulness of times, * * * that a whole\nand complete and perfect union and welding together of dispensations\nand keys and powers and glories should take place and be revealed\nfrom the days of Adam even to the present time.\"--Joseph Smith, (D.\nand C. 128:18.)\n\n7--1084. **Shiloh Reigns.** Shiloh is another Hebrew name for\nMessiah, whose reign of a thousand years will equal in duration one\nrevolution of the planet Kolob. (Abraham 3:4.)\n\n8--1085. **Hast Labored.** The seven thousand years of Earth's\n\"temporal existence\" correspond to the seven seals of the Apocalyptic\nBook (Rev. 5 and 6) and are as seven great days, four of which had\npassed before Christ came, while nearly two have gone by since.\nAccording to this reckoning we are now in the Saturday evening of\nhuman history. The Millennium will be the seventh day--the World's\nSabbath. (D. and C. 77:12; Abraham 3, 4, and 5).\n\n9--1089. **Ancient Tidings.** The Everlasting Gospel, first revealed\nto Adam, who presides over all the dispensations. (History of the\nChurch, Vol. 4, pp. 207-209).\n\n10--1103. **What I Know.** Joseph Smith is said to have expressed the\nwish that he might reveal his identity and declare all that God had\nmade known to him.\n\n11--1117. **Gibborim.** Mighty ones. King David's six hundred guards\nwere called \"The Gibborim,\" for their heroic bravery. (Geike, \"Hours\nWith the Bible,\" Vol. III, pp. 254, 276, 325, 339).\n\n12--1118. **Worthy The Word.** The explanation of this phrase is in\nthat saying of the Saviour's: \"Is it not written that they are gods\nto whom the word of God comes?\"--meaning, of course, a superior race\nof men.\n\n13--1136. **Fifth of Seven.** The Fifth Angel is he who \"committeth\nthe everlasting gospel.\" (D. and C., 88:103).\n\n14--1165. **From Wintry Sleep.** At this point begins the personal\nhistory of the Prophet, who is also the subject of previous\nallusions. (\"Writings of Joseph Smith\"--Pearl of Great Price).\n\n15--1214. **Dual Presence.** Joseph's vision of the Father and the\nSon.\n\n16--1217. **Unknown Mount.** A mountain referred to in the Book of\nMoses. (1:1).\n\n17--1235. **An Atlas.** Atlas was one of the Titans. He is depicted\nwith the globe on his back.\n\n18--1247. **Exalted Man.** \"God himself is an exalted man.\"--Joseph\nSmith, (\"Times and Seasons,\" August 15, 1844).\n\n              \"As man now is, God once was;\n              As God now is, man may be.\"--\n                             Lorenzo Snow, Biography, p. 46.\n\n19--1261. **Wisdom of the Wise.** The stanza in which this phrase\noccurs is based upon Isaiah 29:13, 14.\n\n20--1283. **A Messenger From God.** The Angel Moroni.\n\n21--1302. **Page to Page.** The Book of Mormon, or Stick of Joseph,\njoins with the Hebrew Bible, or Stick of Judah, as foretold by\nEzekiel (37:16-20).\n\n22--1310. **Ready For The Fall.** Prophecy ripe for fulfillment.\n\n23--1311. **Elias Comes.** Moroni, restoring the Gospel, predicts the\ncoming of a greater, to restore all things.\n\n24--1324. **Fullest Freedom.** The Kingdom of God will protect all\nmen in the enjoyment of their rights. The citizens and lawmakers of\nthat Kingdom will not be all of one religious faith. So taught Joseph\nSmith and Brigham Young.\n\n25--1331. **Primal Language.** The Adamic tongue or Pure Language,\nbrought back in the restoration of all things.\n\n26--1407. **Ramah * * * Cumorah.** Book of Mormon names. That book is\nan abridged history of two great races, the Jaredites and the\nNephites, who inhabited America prior to its discovery by Europeans.\nTheir occupancy of the land was successive, the Jaredites coming from\nthe Tower of Babel, B. C. 2218; and the founders of the Nephite\nnation from Judea, B. C. 600. The Jaredites perished about the time\nthat the Nephites came. The latter were destroyed, A. D. 384, by the\nLamanites, a degenerate and savage faction of their own people, whose\nremnants were found by Columbus and named Indians. The golden plates\ncontaining the Nephite-Jaredite record were taken by Joseph Smith\nfrom the Jaredite hill Ramah, called by the Nephites, Cumorah.\n\n---\n\nCANTO SIX\n\n1--Title: **From Out The Dust.** A paraphrase of Isaiah 29:4. The\nprediction is held to have been fulfilled in the coming forth of the\nBook of Mormon. This entire Canto is based upon the general content\nof that volume. It embodies the prehistoric story of America, assumed\nto have been related by the angel custodian to the translator of the\nburied Book of Gold.\n\n2--1415. **Must Righteous Be.** See Ether 2:8-12.\n\n3--1434. **Former State.** The Book of Mormon is the only adequate\nexplanation of the origin of the American Indians.\n\n4--1457. **Ancient Altar.** Adam's altar, in Adam-ondi-Ahman,\notherwise Spring Hill, Daviess County, Missouri, (D. and C. 116;\nHistory of the Church, Vol. 3, p. 388).\n\n5--1461. **Dual Grave.** Burial in earth and hell, or death temporal\nand spiritual.\n\n6--1466. **Where Adam Dwelt.** According to Joseph Smith, Jackson\nCounty, Missouri, is the ancient site of the Garden of Eden. Our\nFirst Parents, after their expulsion from Eden, dwelt in the Valley\nof Adam-ondi-Ahman. See Note 4.\n\n7--1468. **Still Chaste.** The fall of Adam and Eve, while\ntechnically a sin because of a broken law, should be stressed as the\nmeans whereby God's children obtained their bodies, rather than as an\nact of moral turpitude. There are two general classes of\ncrimes--malum per se and malum prohibitum. Malum per se is a Latin\nphrase signifying \"an evil in itself,\" while malum prohibitum means\n\"that which is wrong because forbidden by law.\" The transgression of\nour First Parents was malum prohibitum, and the consequent descent\nfrom an immortal to a mortal condition was the Fall.\n\n8--1470. **Love's Work.** Adam's fall prepared the way for Christ's\nredemptive mission. Had there been no fall, man would have remained a\nspirit, without a body, and consequently imperfect. Christ redeemed\nthe soul--spirit and body--and put it in the way to perfection.\n\n9--1471. **Zion of Primeval Days.** The City of Enoch. (Moses\n7:18-64; History of the Church, Vol. 4, pp. 209, 210; D. and C.\n84:99-102.)\n\n10--1479. **Final Change.** The change wrought upon the people of\nEnoch by translation not being equivalent to resurrection, they will\nhave to undergo a further change, to prepare them for celestial\nglory. But they will not taste of death. A similar lot is that of\nJohn the Beloved (John 21:20-23; D. and C. 7); also of the Three\nNephites (III Nephi 28) and of certain ones mentioned by Paul (I Cor.\n15:50-54).\n\n11--1480. **New Jerusalem.** The divinely chosen site for the Holy\nCity is Independence, Jackson County, Missouri.\n\n12--1484. **Japheth * * * Shem.** The reference is to Noah's blessing\nupon Shem and Japheth (Gen. 9:26-27). From Shem came Abraham, the\nancestor of the House of Israel; and from Japheth the Gentiles, the\nfounders of the most enlightened nations of modern times, including\nthe United States of America. Ham, through Canaan, was the progenitor\nof the negro race, long held in slavery in this and other Gentile\ncountries. The Ethiopian has also served the Semite, as Noah\npredicted. How Japheth has \"dwelt in the tents of Shem,\" is partly\nshown by the history of Palestine, long dominated by the Gentiles,\nparticularly the Turks, who still possess it. Japheth's remarkable\nblessing has also been realized in the history of our own country,\nAmerica, which the Gentiles now inhabit, and where, according to the\nBook of Mormon, they are to assist in gathering Israel and building\nthe New Jerusalem, (III Nephi 20 and 21). It is their privilege to\nshare, if they will, in all the blessings promised to the chosen\npeople. (Abraham 2:9-11.) \"The tents of Shem\" may be interpreted to\nmean the homes of the people of God, lineally descended from Shem,\nthrough Abraham.\n\n13--1485. **An Ark of Peace.** \"It shall be the only people that\nshall not be at war one with another.\" (D. and C. 45:69).\n\n14--1486. **The Ensign.** The Church of Christ in Latter Days.\n\n15--1487. **Joseph Signals Jacob.** Joseph, in Ephraim, begins the\nwork of Israel's gathering.\n\n16--1489. **Ancient of Days.** Adam as the Ancient of Days will\nreturn to the place where he blessed his posterity. (D. and C. 116;\nHistory of the Church, Vol. 3, p. 388). See notes 4 and 6.\n\n17--1507. **Hesperia.** The West--America.\n\n18--1512. **That Servant.** The servant mentioned by the Saviour to\nthe Nephites. (III Nephi 21:10, 11).\n\n19--1515. **God's Legion.** \"Zion, which shall come forth out of all\nthe creations which I have made.\" (Moses 7:64).\n\n20--1517. **Land of Joseph.** America, as the Latter-day Saints have\nbeen taught to believe, was given to Joseph of old as an inheritance.\n(Gen. 49:22, 26; Deut. 33:13-17).\n\n21--1519. **Gog and Magog.** Gog is the name of a person; Magog, of a\ncountry or people. According to Ezekiel (38 and 39) Gog, \"the chief\nprince of Meshech and Tubal,\" was to come with his people from the\nNorth to invade the land of Israel and there suffer defeat. Gog and\nMagog are generally understood as symbolical expressions for the\nheathen nations of Asia, more particularly the Scythians. In this\npoem the allusion is to those nations that war against Zion.\n\n22--1538. **Where, Joseph?** Joseph Smith is meant. To him, after a\ngeneral introduction, Moroni relates the story of the Jaredites, as\ntold in that part of the Book of Mormon entitled \"The Book of Ether.\"\n\n23--1540. **Wide Severing.** In the days of Peleg the earth was\n\"divided\" (Gen. 10:25). Whether this means the dividing \"to the\nnations\" of \"their inheritance\" (Deut. 32.8), or a tearing asunder of\nthe land into continents and islands, is not stated. The latter view,\nthe one here suggested, may help to explain why the site of the\nGarden of Eden is now in North America.\n\n24--1543. **Sons of Shinar.** The Jaredites, who came from the Tower\nof Babel, the place of which was \"a plain in the Land of Shinar.\"\n(Gen. 11:2). Shinar was Chaldea.\n\n25--1547. **Primal Tongue.** The language of the Jaredites--the pure\nAdamic tongue--was not confounded.\n\n26--1554. **A Book Sublime.** A book written by the Jaredite leader,\nand yet to come forth. That leader was Mahonri Moriancumr, though\nthis name does not occur in the Book of Mormon. \"The Brother of\nJared\" is the only appellation bestowed upon him there. Joseph Smith\nsupplied the missing name.\n\n27--1557. **Baptismal Billows.** The Jaredites, in barges, passed\nthrough the depths of the ocean, to reach their Land of Promise\n(Ether 6:6). Their voyage was therefore a baptism, more literal than\nthe passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea, and referred to by\nPaul as a baptism. (1 Cor. 10:2.)\n\n28--1561. **Shelem's Height.** The Mount Shelem, so called \"because\nof its exceeding height.\" (Ether 3:1).\n\n29--1566. **Wing-Like Continents.** North and South America.\n\n30--1573. **Mahonri's Realm.** North America, possessed by the\nJaredites down to about 600 B. C., when the nation was destroyed by\ninternecine strife.\n\n31--1580. **Freedom's Greater Cause.** The Cause of Christ.\n\n32--1591. **Past Zions Rose.** \"Thou hast taken Zion to thine own\nbosom, from all thy creations, from all eternity to all eternity.\"\n(Moses 7:31.)\n\n33--1595. **Fortressed by God's Mightiness.** I Nephi 13:19; Ether\n2:12; D. and C. 45:70.\n\n34--1601. **\"Give Us a King.\"** The Jaredites demanded a king--a\ndemand reluctantly acceded to by their leaders, who foresaw, as did\nSamuel the Prophet, in a similar situation, the evils that would\nresult. (Ether 6:22-28; I Samuel 8:4-22).\n\n35--1645. **Solitary Twain.** The Prophet Ether and King Coriantumr,\nthe last of the Jaredites.\n\n36--1653. **Another Nation.** The Nephites.\n\n37--1657. **After Tale.** These words--part of a brief comment by the\nauthor--introduce a summary of the Nephite narrative.\n\n38--1665. **A Leper.** Jerusalem in her degenerate state.\n\n39--1666. **Prophet Pioneer.** Lehi, a descendant of Joseph, through\nManasseh, with a colony from Jerusalem, succeeds the all but extinct\nJaredites upon the Land of Promise, where they extend the glory of\ntheir great ancestor.\n\n40--1669. **Joseph's Bough.** \"Joseph is a fruitful bough.\" (Gen.\n49:22).\n\n41--1690. **Chosen Seer.** Lehi predicts the coming of \"a choice\nseer\" who is to be a lineal descendant of Joseph. The name of that\nseer is also to be Joseph, and it is to be the name of his father--a\nprophecy fulfilled in Joseph Smith, Jr. (II Nephi 3.)\n\n42--1692. **Buried Lore.** The Book of Mormon.\n\n43--1695. **Favored Son.** Nephi, who succeeded his father Lehi, and\nagainst whom his brothers Laman and Lemuel rebelled, thus dividing\nthe nation into Nephites and Lamanites.\n\n44--1712. **Heavy Rod.** The Lord used the savage Lamanites to\nscourge the enlightened yet ofttimes disobedient Nephites.\n\n45--1717. **Infinite and Spirit Minister.** The Spirit of the Lord,\ndeclared by Nephi to be in the form of man, and with whom he\nconversed as one man converses with another. (I Nephi 11:11).\n\n46--1731. **Prophet Prince Foresaw.** Nephi's vision of the future,\nin which he beheld events upon both hemispheres--Christ's crucifixion\nand resurrection, and his subsequent appearings to the more righteous\nof the Nephites, preceded by awful judgments upon the wicked (III\nNephi 8-11).\n\n47--1757. **Final Doom.** The conflagrations that destroyed Nephite\ncities were prophetic of the end of the world, which is to be by fire.\n\n48--1771. **Infant Innocence.** The children of the Nephites, blessed\nby the Saviour. (III Nephi 17:11-24).\n\n49--1785. **Other Sheep.** Jesus said to his Jewish disciples, \"Other\nsheep I have, which are not of this fold.\" (John 10:16). They\nsupposed that he meant the Gentiles, instead of which, as the Book of\nMormon tells, he had reference to the Nephites and to other branches\nof the House of Israel. (III Nephi 15:17-24; 16:1; 17:4.)\n\n50--1803. **Japheth's Destiny.** The Saviour portrays the future of\nAmerica and the diverse fates of the obedient and disobedient\nGentiles (III Nephi 16 and 21).\n\n51--1811. **A Lion to the Chase.** III Nephi, 20:16; 21:12.\n\n52--1820. **Sun's Red Glow.** The wrath of the Lamanites, turning\nupon their white oppressors.\n\n53--1822. **Eternal Rays.** Divinely revealed laws by which Zion will\nbe redeemed (D. and C. 105:4, 5).\n\n54--1826. **Servant Marred.** \"He shall be marred because of them.\"\n(III Nephi 21:10.)\n\n55--1834. **He Sanctifieth Three.** The Three Nephites (III Nephi\n28).\n\n56--1847. **Forebeam of Day Divine.** The happy condition of the\nNephites, for two centuries after the coming of Christ, was a\nforetaste of the Millennium.\n\n57--1854. **So Shall It Be.** Terrible calamities are to precede the\nReign of Peace, as they preceded the events that typified it.\n(Matthew 24).\n\n58--1869. **Avalanche * * * Sun's Face.** Nephites and Lamanites.\n\n59--1872. **Bloody Chase.** The Lamanites driving the Nephites to\ntheir doom at the Hill Cumorah.\n\n60--1883. **Oriental Sight.** The Western Hemisphere discovered by\nthe Eastern.\n\n61--1885. **Faith * * * Patience.** The Brother of Jared was noted\nfor his exceeding faith (Ether 3:9). Columbus triumphed by patient\nendurance.\n\n62--1894. **Zion's Land.** Joseph Smith declared the whole of America\nto be the Land of Zion.\n\n63--1899. **Oppressed Become Oppressors.** Even the liberty-loving\nsettlers of New England, who had fled from tyranny in the Old World\nto find freedom in the New, enslaved the red man and drove him from\nhis ancient possessions.\n\n64--1904. **The Motherland.** Great Britain, mother of the New\nEngland colonies.\n\n65--1909. **Man of Matchless Worth.** Washington.\n\n66--1922. **Joseph's Namesake Seer.** Joseph Smith, Jr., (II Nephi 3).\n\n67--1931. **The Iron Rod.** The Word of God (1 Nephi 11:25).\n\n68--1945. **Spirit Gardens.** The Heavenly fields. (D. and C.\n88:51-61).\n\n---\n\nCANTO SEVEN\n\n1--Title: **The Arcana of the Infinite.** \"Arcana,\" the Latin plural\nof \"Arcanum,\" signifies hidden, secret. This title is intended to be\nan equivalent for \"The Mysteries of the Kingdom\"--the esoteric\nfeatures or advanced principles of the Gospel. Herein are summarized\nthose sublime doctrines that came directly to the modern Revelator\nduring and subsequent to the translating of the ancient plates. A\nvision of the dispensations is involved--the reading of the Book of\nTime and the Volume of Eternity.\n\n2--1986. **One Vast Mind.** Joseph Smith, Prophet, Seer, and\nRevelator.\n\n3--2009. **The Solemn Dispensations.** In theology the term\n\"dispensation\"--from \"dispense,\" to deal out or distribute--signifies\nthe method or scheme by which God has at different times developed\nhis purposes and revealed himself to man. It also denotes a period\nmarked by some particular development of the Lord's work, such as the\nMosaic Dispensation, lasting from Moses to Christ; or the Meridian\nDispensation, ending in the apostacy that made necessary another\nrestoration of the Gospel and the Priesthood. While revelation is\nsilent upon the subject, it is probable that there are seven Gospel\ndispensations--seven distinct periods during which the Plan of\nProgression, revealed from Heaven to Earth, has been among the\nchildren of men. The belief as to seven is partly based upon the\nscriptural or symbolical character of that number, and upon the\nProphet Joseph's teachings relative to the seven periods, each of a\nthousand years, answering to the seven seals of the mystical Book\nseen by John in his vision on Patmos (Rev. 5, 6; D. and C. 77).\n\n4--2022. **The Trumpets Seven.** The Angels of the Dispensations. (D.\nand C. 88:92-116).\n\n5--2032. **The Holy Order.** The Eternal Priesthood--divine\nauthority--and those who wield it, in Heaven and on Earth. (History\nof the Church, Vol. III, p. 385; Vol. IV, p. 207; D. and C. 20, 68,\n84, 107, 112, 121, 124; Alma 13:1-10.)\n\n6--2057. **Ere Earth Knew Abraham.** The pre-existence of the House\nof Israel is intimated by Moses (Deut. 32:7, 8). The 144,000\nmentioned by John (Rev. 14:1) and by Joseph (D. and C. 77:11) were\n\"of all the tribes of the children of Israel.\"\n\n7--2059. **Ark of God * * * Sword of Flame.** Emblems, respectively,\nof the Priesthood and the Gospel.\n\n8--2063. **Shine and Shadow.** Dispensations of heavenly light,\nalternating with periods of spiritual darkness.\n\n9--2068. **Succeeded By The Less.** Moses, with the Melchisedek\nPriesthood and the fulness of the Gospel, was taken back to Heaven,\nleaving Israel to be governed by the Aaronic Priesthood and the Law.\n(D. and C. 84:19-28.)\n\n10--2071. **Ministers Upon Each Hemisphere.** Jewish and Nephite\napostles.\n\n11--2074. **The Perfect Church.** The Church of Christ on Earth,\nperfected after the pattern of the Church in Heaven. (D. and C.\n76:67; 107:93. See also \"Gospel Themes,\" p. 81.)\n\n12--2089. **The Ancient One.** \"Daniel, in his seventh chapter,\nspeaks of the Ancient of Days; he means the oldest man, our father\nAdam, Michael; he will call his children together and hold a council\nwith them to prepare them for the coming of the Son of Man.\"--Joseph\nSmith (History of the Church, Vol. 3, p. 386; D. and C. 116).\n\n13--2099. **Keys of Light.** \"Three grand keys by which good or bad\nangels or spirits may be known.\" (D. and C. 129).\n\n14--2136. **Most Intelligent.** \"God himself, finding he was in the\nmidst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw\nproper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to\nadvance like himself.\"--Joseph Smith (\"Times and Seasons,\" August 15.\n1844).\n\n15--2140. **Intelligence Eternal.** \"Intelligence, or the light of\ntruth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be\" (D. and C.\n93:29, 36). \"The first principles of man are self existent with God.\"\n(\"Times and Seasons,\" August 15, 1844).\n\n16--2150. **Birth and Death Are Baptism.** See \"Gospel Themes,\" pp.\n66, 67.\n\n17--2161. **Earthly Sorrow.** The trials of mortal life, foreseen\nfrom spirit heights by the children of God, who nevertheless rejoiced\nat the prospect of glory beyond.\n\n18--2167. **Second Estate.** Man's first estate is the spirit life;\nhis second estate, the mortal life. In the former he walks by sight,\nin the latter by faith.\n\n19--2188. **Sun or Moon or Varying Star.** The heavenly bodies typify\ncelestial, terrestrial, and telestial glories. (D. and C. 76:96-98.)\n\n20--2197. **Vicarious Ordinance.** Temple work, done by the living in\nbehalf of the dead. (D. and C. 127 and 128.)\n\n21--2288. **Felon's Debt.** \"This earth was organized or formed out\nof other planets which were broken up and remodeled and made into the\none on which we live.\"--Joseph Smith (Compendium, p. 287).\n\n22--2293. **Law Hath Magnified.** \"The earth abideth the law of a\ncelestial kingdom.\" (D. and C. 88:25).\n\n23--2298. **Celestial Seer Stone.** Earth in its sanctified,\nimmortal, and eternal state will be like a sea of glass and fire\n(Rev. 4:6), a great Urim and Thummim to its glorified inhabitants (D.\nand C. 130:6-11).\n\n24--2325. **Would Have Lived The Law.** Men's desires as well as deeds\nwill form a basis for eternal judgment (History of the Church, Vol.\n2, p. 380).\n\n25--2333. **Judah's One and Joseph's Three.** John the Revelator and\nthe Three Nephites.\n\n26--2336. **Unclothed Spirit.** The Spirit seen by the Brother of\nJared, and afterwards embodied as Jesus of Nazareth.\n\n27--2337. **The Triple Seer.** The Apostle Paul, \"caught up to the\nthird heaven\" (II Cor. 12:2).\n\n---\n\nCANTO EIGHT\n\n1--Title: **The Lifted Ensign.** The Church of Jesus Christ of\nLatter-day Saints, organized April 6, 1830.\n\n2--2357. **Shepherds Twain.** Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, the\nfirst and second Elders of the Church.\n\n3--2366. **Giant of Untruth.** The parallel begun in the first stanza\ncontinues through the second.\n\n4--2380. **Time Yet Was Young.** Here the main narrative reverts to\nthe story of Enoch and his city, as revealed to Joseph the Seer, and\nembodied in the Book of Moses (6 and 7). In the poem that story\ncontinues as far as the line, \"And Noah's righteous seed in me\nrejoice.\"\n\n5--2389. **Sainted Commonweal.** The City of Enoch.\n\n6--2400. **Chain * * * Sundered.** The people of Enoch, under the Law\nof Consecration, attained to such a superior condition that it was\nsaid of them: \"And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were\nof one heart and one mind and dwelt in righteousness, and there was\nno poor among them.\" (Moses 7:18.)\n\n7--2404. **Armageddon's Conflict.** The final struggle between the\npowers of Good and Evil, when Satan will be overthrown (D. and C.\n88:112-115).\n\n8--2409. **Terrestrial Radiance.** \"Their place of habitation is that\nof the terrestrial order.\" They are \"held in reserve to be\nministering angels unto many planets,\" and \"as yet have not entered\ninto so great a fulness as those who are resurrected from the dead.\"\nJoseph Smith (\"History of the Church,\" Vol. 4, pp. 209, 210).\n\n9--2420. **The Captive Free.** Christ, during the interval between\nhis crucifixion and resurrection, visited and preached to \"the\nspirits in prison\"--spirits disobedient in the days of Noah, and\nswept away by the Deluge (I Peter 3:19, 20; and 4:61; Key to Theology\n14).\n\n10--2424. **Climbing Robber-like.** According to the Bible, the\npeople who built the Tower of Babel did so that its top might \"reach\nunto heaven\" (Gen. 11:4). Joseph Smith is said to have declared that\nthe \"heaven\" they had in view was the City of Enoch, then suspended\nwithin sight of the earth. Endeavoring to get to Heaven by \"another\nway,\" the builders of Babel were comparable to \"thieves and robbers.\"\nTradition asserts that the City of Enoch stood where the Gulf of\nMexico now is.\n\n11--2432. **Tri-Branching Tree.** Noah and his three sons, Japheth,\nShem and Ham.\n\n12--2464. **One Like Unto Him.** Joseph Smith was a man like unto\nMoses, who was like unto Christ. Moses led Israel out of temporal\nbondage, and Joseph began a work destined to deliver Israel from\nspiritual bondage. Thus Moses and Joseph were both typical of Him who\nredeemed the world from the bondage of sin and death.\n\n13--2467. **A Two-Fold Type.** The social and spiritual condition of\nthe Jewish saints and the Nephite disciples foretokened the\nMillennium. Joseph Smith had in view the realization of what Enoch\nhad achieved, and what the primitive Christians endeavored to\naccomplish, in preparing a people for the presence of the Lord.\n\n14--2473. **Sought Fulfillment.** Following these words is a\ndescription of social conditions at the time of the advent of\n\"Mormonism.\"\n\n15--2604. **The Trampled Terror.** A personification of the French\nRevolution.\n\n16--2607. **Frowning Mass, Contemning Class.** The social problem of\nthe Twentieth Century.\n\n17--2630. **Time An Enoch Came.** Joseph Smith is likened unto Enoch,\nand even called by that name, in some of the early revelations (D.\nand C., 78, 92, 96, and 104). This may have been done to impress the\nfact that Joseph's work was similar to that of Enoch.\n\n18--2656. **A Holy Hand.** John the Baptist, ordaining Joseph and\nOliver to the Aaronic Priesthood, May 15, 1829 (D. and C. 13).\n\n19--2661. **Panoply of Power.** The Priesthood. The main narrative\nhere resumes from the point of digression.\n\n20--2694. **Again The Woman Wonderful.** The Church of Christ in its\nLatter-day Restoration.\n\n---\n\nCANTO NINE\n\n1--Title: **Upon the Shoulders of the Philistine.** Under this\ncaption, suggested by Isaiah 11:14, is treated the westward movement\nof the Latter-day Saints, incidental to the gathering of scattered\nIsrael.\n\n2--2722. **Eaglet's Nest Is Empty.** Within a year after its\norganization the church migrated from its birthplace, Fayette, Seneca\nCounty, New York, and the surrounding region.\n\n3--2724. **Storied Strand.** The shore of Lake Erie, in Northern\nOhio, where the Saints began to settle early in 1831. There they\nbuilt their first Temple, and took initial steps toward founding the\nUnited Order, under the Law of Consecration.\n\n4--2742. **Shinea's Land.** Kirtland, Ohio, and its environs, was\n\"The Land of Shinehah\" (D. and C. 82:12 and 104:40-48). From that\npart, in 1837-38, the Church moved its headquarters to Far West,\nCaldwell County, Missouri.\n\n5--2750. **Their Powers Bestow.** An allusion to visions seen in the\nKirtland Temple, April 3, 1836 (D. and C. 110).\n\n6--2759. **Laman's Bands.** The first mission to the Lamanites\n(Indians) was undertaken in the autumn of 1830. The missionaries\nlabored also among the white people of Ohio and Missouri. At\nIndependence, which was then on the frontier of the United States,\nthey crossed the line into Indian Territory, now the State of Kansas.\n\n7--2767. **Lands the Rarest.** The region drained by the Mississippi\nand Missouri rivers.\n\n8--2779. **Japheth's Wrath.** The Gentiles in Western Missouri,\nmisapprehending the motives of the \"Mormons\" in gathering to that\npart, and incited by evil-minded agitators, rose against the\nnewcomers, and drove them first from Jackson County, and eventually\nfrom the State.\n\n9--2788. **The Shoulders.** Civilization, with its steamships,\nrailroads, and other utilities, and persecution, with faggot and\nsword, have helped God's people to accomplish their destiny. \"The\nblood of the martyrs\" has been \"the seed of the Church,\" whose every\nmovement, voluntary or compulsory, has been toward the goal of its\nultimate triumph.\n\n10--2791. **Calm Caesar.** Julius Caesar, while crossing a stormswept\nwater, quieted the apprehensions of his boatman by remarking, \"Fear\nnot, you carry Caesar and his fortunes.\"\n\n11--2794. **The Law of Liberty.** The Gospel of Christ, misnamed\n\"Mormonism.\"\n\n12--2800. **Sees Menace.** Having come mostly from the North and the\nEast, the \"Mormons\" were suspected by the slave-holding Missourians\nof being abolitionists. This false charge, with others equally\ngroundless, caused the persecution that followed.\n\n13--2813. **A Second Pharaoh * * * A Herod.** These epithets fitly\ncharacterize the Governor of Missouri, Lilburn W. Boggs, who issued\nthe edict under which the persecuted people were expelled. Said he,\nto the mob-militia who drove them from their homes: \"The Mormons must\nbe exterminated or driven from the State.\"\n\n14--2815. **Gathering the Whirlwind.** Missouri paid her debt to\njustice during the Civil War, when her Western borders, where mob\nviolence had assailed her \"Mormon\" citizens, were ravaged again and\nagain by the fierce guerilla warfare that spent its fury in that\nunhappy region.\n\n15--2829. **Shakes the Dungeon.** Joseph Smith and others were\nimprisoned in Richmond Jail, where they were taunted by their guards,\nwho boasted of murders and outrages committed upon the defenseless\npeople after the surrender of Far West. The lion-hearted leader\nendured it till he could endure no more. Springing to his feet, he\nrebuked the ribald wretches, commanding them in the name of Jesus\nChrist to be still. They obeyed, cowering before him and begging his\npardon. Parley P. Pratt, a fellow prisoner with the Prophet, says of\nthis remarkable incident: \"He ceased to speak. He stood erect in\nterrible majesty, chained and without a weapon. * * * I have seen the\nministers of justice, clothed in magisterial robes, and criminals\narraigned before them, while life was suspended on a breath in the\ncourts of England; I have witnessed a Congress in solemn session to\ngive laws to nations * * * but dignity and majesty have I seen but\nonce, as it stood in chains at midnight in a dungeon, in an obscure\nvillage of Missouri.\" (Autobiography, pp. 229, 230.)\n\n16--2835. **Disease and Death Subdued.** After the Prophet had\nregained his freedom, and while his followers were settling at\nCommerce (afterwards Nauvoo), an epidemic of fever and ague swept\nover that region. Many, prostrated by the malady, were miraculously\nhealed under his administrations.\n\n17--2836. **Sire of Waters.** The Mississippi River.\n\n18--2839. **City, Mother of Many.** Nauvoo the Beautiful, built upon\nthe site of Commerce, in Hancock County, Illinois, was the parent and\nmodel of many other cities subsequently founded by the Latter-day\nSaints, mostly in the region of the Rocky Mountains.\n\n19--2846. **Unworldly Link.** The Nauvoo Temple, where work began in\nthis dispensation for the salvation of the dead.\n\n20--2847. **Elijah's Mightier Mission.** Malachi 3:1 and 4:5, 6; D.\nand C. 110:4-16; History of the Church, Vol. 4, p. 211; Gospel\nThemes, pp. 138, 139.\n\n21--2860. **Crisis Past.** Early in 1837, during a period of apostacy\nat Kirtland, the Prophet said: \"Something new must be done to save\nthe Church.\" Thereupon he appointed Heber C. Kimball, of the Council\nof the Twelve, to head a mission to Europe. Part of the opposition\nencountered by Elder Kimball and his associates was a fierce\nonslaught by evil spirits, at Preston, England, where they began\ntheir labors. (Life of Heber C. Kimball, pp. 138-146.) The first\ncompany of emigrating Saints from abroad sailed from Liverpool for\nNauvoo, in 1840. By that time another apostolic mission, headed by\nBrigham Young, President of the Twelve, had been sent to the British\nIsles.\n\n22--2863. **Befriended by the Just.** Many of the people of Illinois\nextended a hospitable welcome to the plundered and homeless\n\"Mormons,\" fleeing out of Missouri.\n\n23--2866. **Earliest Offering.** Ephraim is the first branch of the\nIsraelitish tree to bear the fruits of faith in and obedience to the\nGospel in latter days. \"Ephraim is my first-born,\" the Lord says\nthrough Jeremiah (31:9). That is, Ephraim, who \"mixed himself among\nthe people\" (Hosea 7:8), is the first to be \"born of God\"--baptized\nand gathered out from the nations.\n\n24--2877. **Egypt of the West.** America, where the gathered\ndescendants of Joseph are to re-enact upon a larger scale the part\nplayed by their great ancestor in the famine-stricken nation on the\nNile.\n\n25--2882. **Long Lost Captives.** The Ten Tribes, carried away by the\nAssyrians, B. C. 721, and who are to return from \"the north\ncountries\" (D. and C. 133:26-35).\n\n26--2891. **Rallying the Loyal.** The Latter-day Saints have been\ntaught to look forward to a time when they, lifting up an ensign to\nlovers of law, order, and liberty, and reinforced by them, will save\nthis Nation, while anarchy is aiming at its life.\n\n27--2903. **Inglorious Battleground.** The field of Cumorah.\n\n28--2905. **Where Erst He Fled.** The House of Joseph, in modern\ntimes, begins its march of destiny at the Hill Cumorah, where the\nNephites (also of Joseph) met their tragic fate. There is a tradition\nto the effect that every Temple reared by the Latter-day Saints marks\na stage in the flight of the doomed Nephites, pursued by the\nvictorious Lamanites, to the final slaughter at that historic hill.\n\n29--2919. **Ruined Lie.** The allusion is to cities and temples built\nand abandoned by the Saints in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. (D. and\nC. 101, 103, and 105.)\n\n30--2924. **Union * * * Enoch Saw.** The United Order--all things\nconsecrated to God. (D. and C. 105:4, 5.)\n\n31--2930. **Her Trembling Foes.** \"Let us not go up to battle against\nZion, for the inhabitants of Zion are terrible.\" (D. and C. 45:70.)\n\n32--2951. **Pain Shall Bring Thee Power.** Sacrificial trials, that\npurify and elevate, redound to the advantage of posterity. The\nparents suffer that the children may be blest. All noble and powerful\nraces have \"come up through great tribulation.\"\n\n33--2969. **City of Joseph.** A name given to Nauvoo after the\nProphet's martyrdom.\n\n---\n\nCANTO TEN\n\n1--Title: **The Parted Veil.** Joseph's vision and prophecy of the\nfuture. He is represented as foretelling to his people their great\ndestiny.\n\n2--2994. **Honor of a State.** Joseph the Prophet and Hyrum the\nPatriarch were murdered while under the pledged protection of the\nGovernor of Illinois. The mob that fired its fatal volleys into the\nbosoms of the martyrs, and went unwhipped of justice, struck down the\nhonor of a sovereign commonwealth of the American Union.\n\n3--2998. **The Blazing Dome.** The Nauvoo Temple, burned by the mob\nforces, after they had captured the city and expelled the remnant of\nthe persecuted community left behind at the beginning of the exodus\nin February, 1846.\n\n4--3003. **New Born Babes.** Nine infants, it is said, were born in\nthe camps of the fugitive Saints, on Sugar Creek, Iowa, the first\nnight out from Nauvoo.\n\n5--3011. **Born in a Day. \"Little One\"--\"A Thousand.\"**--Applications\nof ancient prophecy. (Isaiah 60:22 and 66:8).\n\n6--3016. **Cities Twain.** Zion and Jerusalem, the future capitals of\nthe Saviour's Kingdom; the former the seat of representative\ngovernment, the latter of monarchical power. \"Out of Zion shall go\nforth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.\" (Isaiah 2:3;\nMicah 4:2.)\n\n7--3024. **Fain Would Dwell.** The extension of slavery to the West\nwas the dream of the South before the Civil War. This was one reason\nwhy the Southern States favored the war with Mexico.\n\n8--3026. **Aztec's Altar.** The region settled by the \"Mormon\"\npeople, between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, belonged\nto Mexico, the Land of the Aztecs.\n\n9--3030. **Golden Empire!** California, as a Mexican province,\nincluded the present States of Utah and Nevada. Some of the earliest\nsettlers of Salt Lake Valley had previously helped to colonize\nCalifornia, and were among those who discovered gold there, January,\n1848.\n\n10--3032. **Eden on the Desert Brine.** The redeemed Wilderness\nsurrounding the Great Salt Lake, and formerly known as \"The Great\nAmerican Desert.\"\n\n11--3044. **Land of the Honey Bee.** The State of Utah.\n\n12--3045. **Pilgrim Sire.** The author's father, Horace Kimball\nWhitney, was one of the Pioneers who entered Salt Lake Valley, July\n24, 1847.\n\n13--3054. **Hear Me, My People!** At this point begins the Prophet's\nfarewell address. The preceding stanzas of this Canto are a\ngeneralization of what follows in detail.\n\n14--3073. **Nebo's Height.** Joseph, compared to Moses, is\npredicting his own death and the coming of his successor, the\nPresident of the Twelve, upon whom the Prophet placed the right of\nsuccession.\n\n15--3082. **Stalwart Upon the Mountains.** At Montrose, Iowa, August\n6, 1842, Joseph Smith predicted that the Saints would be driven\nwestward, and would \"become a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky\nMountains.\"\n\n16--3090. **War Shall Wound.** On Christmas Day, 1832, the Prophet\nforetold the war between the North and South. (D. and C. 87.)\nAccording to tradition, he also declared that those nations that\nfirst received the Gospel in this dispensation, would be preserved\nwhen \"the consumption decreed\" \"made a full end of all nations.\"\n\n17--4034. **First Born Fold.** Ephraim, fulfilling his mission in the\nregion of the Rocky Mountains.\n\n18--4041. **Brave Sons of Battling Sires.** Descendants of the\npatriots of the American Revolution.\n\n19--4053. **And by that Power.** \"The redemption of Zion must needs\ncome by power.\" (D. and C. 103:15.)\n\n20--4066. **Zion's Land.** Zion in a restricted sense--Jackson County.\n\n21--4080. **The Common Good.** Christ's Commonwealth, foreshadowed by\nthe American Union.\n\n22--4089. **The Sceptered Harlot.** The Woman described in the\nApocalypse as sitting \"upon many waters\"--a \"great city\" reigning\n\"over the kings of the earth.\" (Rev. 17.)\n\n23--5002. **A Seventh Realm.** Joseph, paraphrasing Paul, said\nconcerning himself: \"I know a man who was caught up to the seventh\nheaven.\"\n\n24--5033. **I Am.** The Name Divine. (Ex. 3:14.)\n\n25--5047. **Light and Liberty.** \"At the first organization in Heaven\nwe were all present and saw the Saviour chosen and appointed, and the\nplan of salvation made, and we sanctioned it.\"--Joseph Smith\n(Compendium, p. 288).\n\n26--5055. **Freedom's Code.** The Gospel of Christ, \"the perfect law\nof liberty,\" typed by the American Constitution, guaranteeing freedom\nand equal rights.\n\n27--5070. **Not Esau's Hand.** Culture as well as strength must play\nits part in the building up of God's Kingdom. Zion, at first\nprimitive and crude, shall become \"the perfection of beauty,\" \"the\njoy of the whole earth.\" Her original builders may be likened to the\nmassive, immovable foundations of a structure whose polished walls\nand glittering spires are represented by their children, educated\nunder improved conditions, and yet to stand in the forefront of the\nworld's civilization.\n\n28--5072. **The Kingdom to Complete.** \"The spirit and power of\nElijah is to come after, holding the keys of power, building the\ntemple to the capstone, placing the seals of the Melchisedek\nPriesthood upon the House of Israel, and making all things ready;\nthen Messiah comes to his Temple.\"--Joseph Smith (Compendium, p. 283;\nD. and C. 27).\n\n---\n\nEPILOGUE\n\n1--Title: **The Angel Ascendant.** The Angel ascending from the East\n(Rev. 7:2; D. and C. 77:9). This is Elias, an address to and a\nresponse from whom forms the body of the epilogue, or final division\nof the poem.\n\n2--6017. **Rose Again.** Elias the All-restorer is represented as\nreopening for Adam the closed communication between Earth and Heaven.\n\n3--6018. **The City Sanctified.** The City of Enoch.\n\n4--6025. **Alien Fire.** The Gospel, restored through Noah, standing\nat the head of a dispensation, was carried by his descendants, after\nthe Flood, to various parts of the earth, where fragments of it\nremain, mixed with the traditions of men. Ceremonies similar to, or\nsuggestive of Gospel ordinances, and found among primitive peoples,\nare thus accounted for.\n\n5--6027. **The Root of Shiloh.** Abraham, ancestor to Jesus of\nNazareth.\n\n6--6029. **Believing Blood.** \"How, by the dispersion of the children\nof Abraham, was the promise to the patriarch fulfilled, that in him\nand in his seed should all the nations of the earth be blessed? * * *\nBy this dispersion the blood of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--the blood\nof faith, the blood that believes--with choice spirits answering to\nthat blood, and selected for that purpose, were sent into those\nnations where the Gospel was afterwards preached, spirits capable of\nrecognizing the truth, and brave enough to embrace it.\" (Gospel\nThemes, p. 156.)\n\n7--6033. **Egypt's Chain.** The spirit of Elias was upon Moses when\nhe led Israel out of bondage.\n\n8--6036. **Long Captivity.** The Assyrian Captivity, which carried\naway the ten tribes.\n\n9--6038. **Whose Sword.** The sword of Joshua, the conqueror of\nCanaan.\n\n10--6042. **Kishon's Brook.** It was at the Brook Kishon that Elijah\nslew the Priests of Baal.\n\n11--6045. **Named Ere Born.** Cyrus, the conqueror of Babylon, who\nrestored the captive Jews, was named by Isaiah more than a century\nbefore his birth. (Isaiah, 45:1.)\n\n12--6049. **Long Sealed Canopy.** The Heavens at the opening of the\nLast Dispensation.\n\n13--6055. **The Kingdom's Keys.** The Melchisedek Priesthood. Elijah\n\"holds the keys of the authority to administer in all the ordinances\nof the Priesthood.\" (History of the Church, Vol. 4, p. 211; D. and C.\n2.)\n\n14--6063. **Abrahamic Keys.** Elias, in the Kirtland Temple,\n\"committed the keys of the Gospel of Abraham.\" (D. and C. 110:12.)\n\n15--6067. **How Tell the Sum?** This stanza associates Columbus,\nJefferson and Washington, impersonally, with others previously\nmentioned, as agents of Elias.\n\n16--6083. **Jacob Upon Esau's Heel.** Genesis, 25:26.\n\n17--7001. **Chaldean Dream.** The nations represented by the image\nseen in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, are to pass, like the dream itself,\nwhich the king was unable to recall.\n\n18--7010. **Adorned and Ready.** When the Church, the Bride, is fully\nprepared, the Lord, the Bridegroom, will come.\n\n19--7015. **Destroyers Four.** Four angels (Rev. 7:1; D. and C. 77:8,\n9).\n\n20--7017. **Twelve Times Twelve.** The One Hundred and Forty-Four\nThousand. (Rev. 14:1; D. and C. 77:11.)\n\n21--7022. **The Bow's Bright Promise.** Joseph the Seer gave, as a\nsign of the Second Coming, the withdrawal of the rainbow. Christ\nwould not come during any year that the rainbow was visible; but when\nit was permanently withdrawn, the world might know that His coming\nwas near at hand. (Compendium, p. 83.)\n\n22--7036. **Prophet of the Dawn.** Elias, the Morning Star.","title":"Elias: An Epic of the Ages","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":36088}