| 16 | THE ACCUSERS. |
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ON the cerulean floor by that dread circle surrounded,
Stood the soul of the King alone. In front was the Presence
Veil’d with excess of light; and behind was the blackness of darkness.
Then might be seen the strength of holiness, then was its triumph,
Calm in his faith he stood, and his own clear conscience upheld him.
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When the trumpet was blown, and the Angel made proclamation—
Lo, where the King appears! Come forward ye who arraign him!
Forth from the lurid cloud a Demon came at the summons.
It was the Spirit by which his righteous reign had been troubled;
Likest in form uncouth to the hideous Idols whom India
(Long by guilty neglect to hellish delusions abandon’d,)
Worships with horrible rites of self-immolation and torture.
Many-headed and monstrous the Fiend; with numberless faces,
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| THE ACCUSERS. | 17 |
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Numberless bestial ears erect to all rumours, and restless,
And with numberless mouths which were fill’d with lies as with arrows.
Clamours arose as he came, a confusion of turbulent voices,
Maledictions, and blatant tongues, and viperous hisses;
And in the hubbub of senseless sounds the watchwords of faction,
Freedom, Invaded Rights, Corruption, and War, and Oppression,
Loudly enounced were heard.
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But when he stood in the Presence,
Then was the Fiend dismay’d, tho’ with impudence clothed as a garment;
And the lying tongues were mute, and the lips which had scatter’d
Accusation and slander, were still. No time for evasion
This, in the Presence he stood: no place for flight; for dissembling
No possibility there. From the souls on the edge of the darkness,
Two he produced, prime movers and agents of mischief, and bade them
Show themselves faithful now to the cause for which they had labour’d.
Wretched and guilty souls, where now their audacity? Where now
Are the insolent tongues so ready of old at rejoinder?
Where the lofty pretences of public virtue and freedom?
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| 18 | THE ACCUSERS. |
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Where the gibe, and the jeer, and the threat, the envenom’d invective,
Calumny, falsehood, fraud, and the whole ammunition of malice?
Wretched and guilty souls, they stood in the face of their Sovereign,
Conscious and self-condemn’d; confronted with him they had injured,
At the Judgement-seat they stood.
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Beholding the foremost,
Him by the cast of his eye oblique, I knew as the firebrand
Whom the unthinking populace held for their idol and hero,
Lord of Misrule in his day. But how was that countenance alter’d
Where emotion of fear or of shame had never been witness’d;
That invincible forehead abash’d; and those eyes wherein malice
Once had been wont to shine with wit and hilarity temper’d,
Into how deep a gloom their mournful expression had settled!
Little avail’d it now that not from a purpose malignant,
Not with evil intent he had chosen the service of evil;
But of his own desires the slave, with profligate impulse,
Solely by selfishness moved, and reckless of aught that might follow.
Could he plead in only excuse a confession of baseness?
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| THE ACCUSERS. | 19 |
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Could he hide the extent of his guilt; or hope to atone for
Faction excited at home, when all old feuds were abated,
Insurrection abroad, and the train of woes that had follow’d!
Discontent and disloyalty, like the teeth of the dragon,
He had sown on the winds; they had ripen’d beyond the Atlantic;
Thence in natural birth sedition, revolt, revolution;
France had received the seeds, and reap’d the harvest of horrors; ..
Where ... where should the plague be stay’d? Oh, most to be pitied
They of all souls in bale, who see no term to the evil
They by their guilt have raised, no end to their inner upbraidings!
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Him I could not choose but know, nor knowing but grieve for.
Who might the other be, his comrade in guilt and in
suffering,
Brought to the proof like him, and shrinking like him from the trial?
Nameless the libeller lived, and shot his arrows in darkness;
Undetected he pass’d to the grave, and leaving behind him
Noxious works on earth, and the pest of an evil example,
Went to the world beyond, where no offences are hidden.
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| 20 | THE ACCUSERS. |
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Mask’d had he been in his life, and now a visor of iron
Rivetted round his head, had abolish’d his features for ever.
Speechless the slanderer stood, and turn’d his face from the Monarch
Iron-bound as it was, .. so insupportably dreadful
Soon or late to conscious guilt is the eye of the injured.
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Caitiffs, are ye dumb? cried the multifaced Demon in anger;
Think ye then by shame to shorten the term of your penance?
Back to your penal dens! ... And with horrible grasp gigantic
Seizing the guilty pair, he swung them aloft, and in vengeance
Hurl’d them all abroad, far into the sulphurous darkness.
Sons of Faction, be warn’d! And ye, ye Slanderers! learn ye
Justice, and bear in mind that after death there is judgement.
Whirling, away they flew. Nor long himself did he tarry,
Ere from the ground where he stood, caught up by a vehement whirlwind,
He too was hurried away; and the blast with lightning and thunder
Vollying aright and aleft amid the accumulate blackness,
Scatter’d its inmates accurst, and beyond the limits of ether
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| THE ACCUSERS. | 21 |
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Drove the hircine host obscene: they howling and groaning
Fell precipitate, down to their dolorous place of endurance.
Then was the region clear; the arrowy flashes which redden’d
Thro’ the foul thick throng, like sheeted argentry floating
Now o’er the blue serene, diffused an innocuous splendour,
In the infinite dying away. The roll of the thunder
Ceased, and all sounds were hush’d, till again from the gate adamantine
Was the voice of the Angel heard thro’ the silence of Heaven.
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