28
A DRAMA OF EXILE.
The Eden scents, no longer sensible,
Expire at Eden's door!
Each footstep of your treading
Treads out some fragrance which ye knew before:
Farewell! the flowers of Eden,
Ye shall smell nevermore.
Expire at Eden's door!
Each footstep of your treading
Treads out some fragrance which ye knew before:
Farewell! the flowers of Eden,
Ye shall smell nevermore.
[There is silence. Adam and Eve fly on, and never look back. Only a colossal shadow, as of the dark Angel passing quickly, is cast upon the Sword-glare.
SCENE.—The extremity of the Sword-glare.
Adam. Pausing a moment on this outer edge,
Where the supernal sword-glare cuts in light
The dark exterior desert,—hast thou strength,
Beloved, to look behind us to the gate?
Eve. I have strength to look upward to thy face.
Adam. We need be strong: yon spectacle of cloud
Which seals the gate up to the final doom,
Is God's seal in a cloud. There seem to lie
A hundred thunders in it, dark and dead;
The unmolten lightnings vein it motionless;
And, outward from its depth, the self-moved sword
Swings slow its awful gnomon of red fire
From side to side,—in pendulous horror slow,—
Across the stagnant, ghastly glare thrown flat
On the intermediate ground from that to this,
In still reflection of still splendour. They,
The angelic hosts, the archangelic pomps,
Thrones, dominations, princedoms, rank on rank,
Rising sublimely to the feet of God,
On either side, and overhead the gate,—
Show like a glittering and sustained smoke
Set in an apex. That their faces shine
Betwixt the solemn claspings of their wings,
Clasped high to a silver point above their heads,—
We only guess from hence, and not discern.
Eve. Though we were near enough to see them shine,
Where the supernal sword-glare cuts in light
The dark exterior desert,—hast thou strength,
Beloved, to look behind us to the gate?
Eve. I have strength to look upward to thy face.
Adam. We need be strong: yon spectacle of cloud
Which seals the gate up to the final doom,
Is God's seal in a cloud. There seem to lie
A hundred thunders in it, dark and dead;
The unmolten lightnings vein it motionless;
And, outward from its depth, the self-moved sword
Swings slow its awful gnomon of red fire
From side to side,—in pendulous horror slow,—
Across the stagnant, ghastly glare thrown flat
On the intermediate ground from that to this,
In still reflection of still splendour. They,
The angelic hosts, the archangelic pomps,
Thrones, dominations, princedoms, rank on rank,
Rising sublimely to the feet of God,
On either side, and overhead the gate,—
Show like a glittering and sustained smoke
Set in an apex. That their faces shine
Betwixt the solemn claspings of their wings,
Clasped high to a silver point above their heads,—
We only guess from hence, and not discern.
Eve. Though we were near enough to see them shine,
