| 12 | THE GATE OF HEAVEN. |
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THUS as he spake, methought the surrounding space dilated.
Over head I beheld the infinite ether; beneath us
Lay the solid expanse of the firmament spread like a pavement:
Wheresoever I look’d, there was light and glory around me.
Brightest it seem’d in the East, where the New Jerusalem glitter’d.
Eminent on a hill, there stood the Celestial City;
Beaming afar it shone; its towers and cupolas rising
High in the air serene, with the brightness of gold in the furnace,
Where on their breadth the splendour lay intense and quiescent:
Part with a fierier glow, and a short quick tremulous motion,
Like the burning pyropus; and turrets and pinnacles sparkled,
Playing in jets of light, with a diamond-like glory coruscant.
Groves of all hues of green their foliage intermingled,
Tempering with grateful shade the else unendurable lustre.
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| THE GATE OF HEAVEN. | 13 |
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Drawing near, I beheld what over the portal was written:
This is the Gate of Bliss, it said; thro’ me is the passage
To the City of God, the abode of beatified Spirits.
Weariness is not there, nor change, nor sorrow, nor parting;
Time hath no place therein; nor evil. Ye who would enter,
Drink of the Well of Life, and put away all that is earthly.
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O’er the adamantine gates an Angel stood on the summit.
Ho! he exclaim’d, King George of England cometh to
judgment!
Hear Heaven! Ye Angels hear! Souls of the Good and the Wicked
Whom it concerns, attend! Thou, Hell, bring forth his accusers!
As the sonorous summons was utter’d, the Winds, who were waiting,
Bore it abroad thro’ Heaven; and Hell, in her nethermost caverns,
Heard, and obey’d in dismay.
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Anon a body of splendour
Gather’d before the gate, and veil’d the Ineffable Presence,
Which, with a rushing of wings, came down. The sentient ether
Shook with that dread descent, and the solid firmament trembled.
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| 14 | THE GATE OF HEAVEN. |
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Round the cloud were the Orders of Heaven ... Archangel and Angel,
Principality, Cherub and Seraph, Thrones, Dominations,
Virtues, and Powers. The Souls of the Good, whom Death had made perfect,
Flocking on either hand, a multitudinous army,
Came at the aweful call. In semicircle inclining,
Tier over tier they took their place: aloft, in the distance,
Far as the sight could pierce, that glorious company glisten’d.
From the skirts of the shining assembly, a silvery vapour
Rose in the blue serene, and moving onward it deepen’d,
Taking a denser form; the while from the opposite region
Heavy and sulphurous clouds roll’d on, and completed the circle.
There with the Spirits accurst, in congenial darkness enveloped,
Were the Souls of the Wicked, who wilful in guilt and in error,
Chose the service of sin, and now were abiding its wages.
Change of place to them brought no reprieval from anguish;
They in their evil thoughts and desires of impotent malice,
Envy, and hate, and blasphemous rage, and remorse unavailing,
Carried a Hell within, to which all outer affliction,
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| THE GATE OF HEAVEN. | 15 |
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So it abstracted the sense, might be deem’d a remission of torment.
At the edge of the cloud, the Princes of Darkness were marshall’d:
Dimly descried within were wings and truculent faces;
And in the thick obscure there struggled a mutinous uproar,
Railing, and fury, and strife, that the whole deep body of darkness
Roll’d like a troubled sea, with a wide and a manifold motion.
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