Targe

“ Suddenly, with a mighty shout, shall their leaden souls be wakened to their shame. The shining Angel, with one sandal on the heaving earth, and the other in the swelling sea, shall cry in trumpet tones that split the silence of earthly crypts and sea deep caves, “Awake, ye dead, and come to judgment!” Then, impelled by a resistless force, shall all souls sweep into the bright light of the great white throne. ”

“ A DUEL WITH SWORDS THERE is nothing in the world more beautiful than the dawn—the birth of a new day—the resurrection of the light. Darkness rolling away like a vapour, lying low on the earth, dropping away into its valleys; above, the firmament is radiant, an arch of glory, of tender colour, of soft white clouds, transcendently lovely, and the very air is sweeter, fresher, full of musical sounds—life stirring gently out of silence and sleep.
As the Princess Daria and I rode from the hut by the wayside, such a dawn was breaking ”

“ Perhaps their being placed here before the throne, in the midst of thunder and lightning, may be designed to represent the idea that—amidst all the scenes of magnificence and grandeur; all the storms, agitations, and tempests on the earth; all the political changes; all the convulsions of empire under the providence of God; and all the commotions in the soul of man, produced by the thunders of the law—the Spirit of God beams calmly and serenely, shedding a steady influence over all, like lamps burning in the very midst of lightnings, and thunderings, and voices. ”

“ Hedged round with thorns of maiden doubts and fears,—
Within, without, a silence grave, intense,—
Her soul lies sleeping through the rose-leaf years.
Hedged round with thorns of maiden doubts and fears;
And all save one the thither path shall miss.
Her soul lies sleeping through the rose-leaf years,
Waiting the Prince and his awakening kiss.
And all save one the thither path shall miss;
For one alone may thread the thorn defence. ”

“ The aged Earth aghast, With terror of that blast, Shall from the surface to the centre shake; When at the world’s last session, The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.
And then at last our bliss Full and perfect is, But now begins; for from this happy day The old Dragon under ground In straiter limits bound, Not half so far casts his usurpèd sway, And wroth to see his kingdom fail, Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail. [Pg 308]
The oracles are dumb, No voice or hideous hum Runs thro’ the archèd roof in words deceiving. ”

“ Thunder in heaven wakes echoes on earth, but more wonderful is it that the thin voice of our supplications, when we scarcely dare to shape them into prayers, should wake a voice from the throne, which, though it is mighty as 'the voice of many waters' and sweet as that of 'harpers harping with their harps,' deigns to echo our poor cries. ”

“ In the ages called dark, and what we think of as rude times, one wanderer was sure of welcome, — wherever he went was free of market and inn, of camp and castle and palace; he who could tell in song or story of the gods and the darker powers; the saints, the helping heroes, and gracious beauty. These men by their magic made hard life seem sweet, and bloody death desirable, and raised in each the hope that even the short thread of life spun out to him by grudging Fate might yet gleam in the glorious tapestry of story. ”

“ All being ready, now, and the darkness opaque, the stillness impressive — for there should be no sound but the soft moaning of the night wind and the muffled sobbing of the sacrifices — let all the far stretch of kerosened pyres be touched off simultaneously and the glare and the shrieks and the agonies burst heavenward to the Throne. ”

“ Forever we sing to a god unseen—
In the dark shall our voices fail?
The void is his robe inviolate,
The night is his awful veil—
How our fires grow dim and pale!
From the ordered gyres goes ever afar
Our song of flame o'er the void unknown,
Where circles nor world, nor comet, nor star.
Shall it die ere it reach His throne?
On the shoreless deeps of the seas of gloom
Sailing, we venture afar and wide,
Where ever await the tempests of doom,
Where the silent maelstroms lurk and hide, [83]
And the darkling reefs abide. ”

“ Where smiles the hearth she blesses
With voice and eye, with voice and eye?
Where binds the night her tresses,
When sleep is nigh, when sleep is nigh!
Is Fashion’s bleak cold mountain
Her bosom’s throne, her bosom’s throne? ”

“ On Death, whose sateless mouth it fed in turn.
Kingdoms abased, and Thrones that starward yearn,
All are but ghouls that batten on the past.
Monstrous and dread, must it forever abide
This inescapable alternity?
Must beauty blossom, rooted in decay,
And night devour its flaming hues alway?
Sickening, will Life not turn eventually,
Or ravenous Death at last be satisfied? ”

“ Though heaven and earth and sky should be forgotten,
Yet of that hour my soul should bear the trace:
For night fell fast, and in the deepening shadow
You turned and kissed my face.
Childhood A stranger come I to the festival
Thou holdest in the regions of romance,
Where dragons lurk and elfin spirits dance,
And pearls lie hid within each rose petal.
What magic changes in life's crystal ball
Shall thus transform earth's dullness at thy glance! ”

“ From the midst of his dominion, that divinity, crowned with a diadem of ebony, and seated on a throne framed out of massive darkness, looks into the infinite abyss beyond, invisible himself to mortal eyes, but made known by the nocturnal thunder which is his weapon. The under world is also the realm to which spirits retire after death. ”

“ I, throneless, hear the discords of the dark,
And roar of ruin uncreate, than which
Some vast cacophony of dragons, heard
In wasted worlds, were purer melody.
The universe His tyranny constrains
Turns on: in old and consummated gulfs
The stars that wield His judgement wait at hand,
And in new deeps Apocalyptic suns
Prepare His corning: lo, His mighty whim
To rear and mar, goes forth enormously
In nights and constellations! Darkness hears
Enragèd suns that bellow down the deep
God's ravenous and insatiable will ”

“ Forms, though distinctly outlined, by some magic seem diaphanous; and the farther your gaze penetrates, the brighter is the light which radiates throughout heaven from the throne of Christ. Still more marvelous is the sense of infinite tranquillity, even in those figures which are moving. These are veritable spirits, though they have human bodies, and they move or rest with equal ease. ”

“ In the depth of the night has come the king of our dark, dreary house. The thunder roars in the sky. The darkness shudders with lightning. Bring out thy tattered piece of mat and spread it in the courtyard. With the storm has come of a sudden our king of the fearful night. ”

“ From the dawn of time these dragons of the sky have caused consternation in the hearts, not only of the ignorant savage but in those of the half-civilized as well, and even among the educated classes there still lingers some echo of that fear, inherited through millions of generations of men, who, from the birth of the race, have sought to read upon the scroll of the heavens the tracings of the hand of Fate. ”

“ Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests; in all time, Calm or convulsed—in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving;—boundless, endless, and sublime— The image of Eternity—the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee: thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. ”

“ When twilight flutters the mountains over,
The faery lights from the earth unfold:
And over the caves enchanted hover
The giant heroes and gods of old.
The bird of æther its flaming pinions
Waves over earth the whole night long:
The stars drop down in their blue dominions
To hymn together their choral song.
The child of earth in his heart grows burning,
Mad for the night and the deep unknown;
His alien flame in a dream returning
Seats itself on the ancient throne. ”

“ But sometimes there are mighty adumbrations which cover even the superior seraphim from above their wing-tips, and make unfamiliar twilight in heaven. And sometimes there is an echo which fills the empyrean, and hushes the archangelic harps in the midst of their praising of God. This is not often, and these visitations of echo and shadow spread an awe over the assembled Thrones and Splendours and Dominations, which at other times accompanies only the emanence or appearance of God Himself. ”

“ Ah, could it be, a hand unseen
Just for a moment drew the screen?
I saw a face remembered—known,
Now radiant by a shining throne.
That face oft seen among the flowers,
Where dewdrops clung in early hours! ”

“ Freed the peoples from the dragon that devoured them,
That scorched with greed their pleasant fields and villages,
Their quiet delightful places:
So they of the frock-coats, amid wreaths and flags victorious,
To the crowds in the flaring squares,
And a murmurous applause
Rises like smoke to mingle in the sky
With the crashing of the bells.
But, resounding in the sky,
Louder than the tramp of feet,
Louder than the crash of bells,
Louder than the blare of bands, victorious,
Shrieks the inextinguishable laughter of the gods. ”

“ And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. [17] 2 And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his throne, and great authority. 3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. ”

“ Those in the theatre crushed each other to the death—agony. For how long, for how many thousand years, must the earth and the sea, and the fire and the air, utter these things and force them upon us before they are admitted in their full significance? ”

“ Thou bidst Creation tremble and obey!
Then, rob'd in darkness and in clouds,
That solemn veil thy glory shrouds;
Chaos and night thy dark pavilion form;
Thy spirit on the whirlwind rides,
Impels the unresisting tides,
Glares in the lightning, rushes in the storm! ”

“ To reach the distant skies, and triumph there
On thrones, which shall not mourn their masters changed,
Though we from earth; ethereal, they that fell.
Such veneration due, O man, to man.
Who venerate themselves, the world despise.
For what, gay friend! is this escutcheon’d world,
Which hangs out death in one eternal night?
A night, that glooms us in the noontide ray,
And wraps our thought, at banquets, in the shroud.
Life’s little stage is a small eminence, 360
Inch-high the grave above; that home of man,
Where dwells the multitude: we gaze around ”

“ They dwell in their present moment, eyes burn, hearts beat faster, lips frame vain words. The same moon is on high, the same odour in the air. They bend their gaze towards the throne, they flock towards the throne as if the touch of it were miraculous. ”

“ The Aeolian harp of the heart does not always discourse battle music, and on this night it was as if an old sad minstrel sat before me and played unendingly one plaint, the story of a lost throne, of a lost family, lost children, a lost world. ”

“ By various influences and agents the Past is summoned before us, more vivid than a dream. The process seems as magical as those whereof we read in fairy legends, where circles are drawn, wands waved, mystic syllables pronounced. Adjured by these rites, voices speak, or forms and faces shape themselves from nothing. ”

“ Yet gleamèd here no crown or mounted throne.
The music budded till it dropped soft showers;
All things to other changed, though here no mage;
Clouds turned to light, and light to sweeter powers,
And chance and change to all was privilege ”

“ Under foot and over head, a continual succession of crowded imagery, one picture passing into another, as in a dream; forms beautiful and terrible mixed together; dragons and serpents, and ravening beasts of prey, and graceful birds that in the midst of them drink from running fountains and feed from vases of crystal; the passions and the pleasures of human life symbolized together, and the mystery of its redemption ”

“ The song of the nightingales was heavenly music in their ears, and the moon’s rays upon the sea were the road by which their linked souls travelled to the throne of Him who had lit their lamp of love, and made petition that through all life’s accidents and death’s darkness it might burn eternally. ”

“ Come blessed Ones and sit on Thrones,
judging the World with me;
Come and possess your happiness,
and bought felicity;
Henceforth no fears, no care, no tears,
no sin shall you annoy,
Nor any thing that grief doth bring:
Eternal Rest enjoy.
They are placed on Thrones to join with Christ in judging the wicked. ”

“ As we nourish the mystic fire, we shall find many things of the early world, which now seem grotesque and unlovely to our eyes, growing full of shadowy and magnificent suggestion. Things that were distant and strange, things abhorrent, the blazing dragons, winged serpents and oceans of fire which affrighted us, are seen as the portals through which the imagination enters a more beautiful, radiant world. ”

“ And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, and the living beings, and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb, that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing. ”