Montezuma Part 2

Then spake the unctious King; and through the King, The man; for he was but a tattered rag Of royalty: "What is this wondrous thing, Old Kohen, you propose? Make haste, let lag Your purpose; why is it, we cannot speak Face unto face with your great Deity?-- Our fathers say old Noah did--what leak Has sprung between us, that we cannot see The father as he is? as others did?

Am I not greater than all earthly Kings?

He spake our fathers, wherefore is he hid That I cannot behold him? Let his wings Be folded for a while, as he comes down, That we may see him as he is; we came To choose a G.o.d, whom we, indeed, can see; Or, if his face be burnished with a flame Too great for our uncovered eyes, then we Are satisfied to close them in the smile Of one so radiant; so we feel him near, "But we must know his presence for the while; Speak Kohen! why can ye not bring him here?"

Then answered Kohen: "Urge me not, O King!

Ye know not what ye ask, if ye do seek To see him as he is. A nameless thing, A brow-bedabbled man, upon whose cheek, Sheds everyday G.o.d's suns.h.i.+ne; shall he ask That a decree be broken, and presume To lift unhallowed voice? Though in a mask Jehovah hides his presence, yet, the bloom Of every flower, is but the blush he brings Upon the face of nature, as he looks Abroad upon his creatures; and she sings From her ten thousand voices in his praise.

Wake to his chorus! 'Ancient of the Days,'

Wake children! and your faith shall blossom into wings."

"Prate ye to fools," the incensed Monarch cries, "Nor gabble longer of your hidden Lord; Who follows in his wake, this moment dies, And Isis and eternal keep my word.

We have a score of hidden deities And yet, they leave us, without aid or thought, And pestilence comes in and blocks our ways And where can our deliverance be bought?

Show the bare hand of infinite decree, Show us a present help in each distress, Show us the Master, we will bend the knee, "And we will follow on, in righteousness.

Strike! strike the chords! while we invoke the G.o.ds, And with the music let our souls be blended, That we may find the one, before whom nods 'All stripling deities, and thus our strife be ended.'"

Then rose a blast of sound upon the air And blended with it was the voice of song, The chime of music with the moan of prayer-- A nation's thirst; deep, earnest and impa.s.sionately strong:

O G.o.d of G.o.ds! be with us when we pray, And give us rest; List our entreaty, be not far away, Be near each breast.

The G.o.ds of Mizraim, we have sought in vain,-- They answer not; Our prayers are but an empty, aching pain,-- We are forgot.

Though Isis bless our fields and flocks with growth, And Thoth be heard; Upon the tongues of wis.e.m.e.n, yet, is wroth Some mighty lord.

Some hidden power without us; in the dark We grope our way; From thine own glory, lend to us a spark, Be thou our day.

O, make thee to be known, From thy unchanging throne, G.o.d of the trusting heart; Come take us by the hand, And be our sole command, And form with us a part.

Give us, to look upon Thy form without a frown, Our doubts and fears displace; G.o.d of the universe, Remove from us, thy curse, Give us to see thy face.

"Behold! behold, his face!"

A hand is pointed to the sun; "Behold! and be ye not afraid, To-day, be life, once more begun; Look ye upon his face, and learn to live, Look ye upon his face and learn to die; His hand alone deliverance can give, His light, alone, can frame the soul's reply.

'Hear me! ye sons of men'; all eyes were turned; A stranger in their midst, whose dark eye burned With an unearthly gleam, yet black as night.

It had no heavenly radiance, yet, was bright With a mysterious blaze, that pierced the soul As with an arrow to its inmost part, His form, in keeping with his face, made whole

"A man well fitted to command; a heart That seemed to throb with some great pa.s.sion; pent And seething into purpose; his black face Shone like a mirror-hood of his design.

His words, and his strange presence in the place Gave him enraptured audience, that no one dared decline.

"Hear me, ye sons of men: I am not come To woe ye to destruction; but, to save; The color of my face betrays my birth, I am Mizraim's race; but of mankind A brother, and I speak in soberness.

Because our fathers wandered from the way, And left the s.h.i.+ning pathway of the sun, Because they fell to seeking other G.o.ds, He suffered them to fall into your hands.

I will not speak, as he has feigned to speak, Who claimed before me, sponsors.h.i.+p from G.o.d; But I will make it plain that he deceived.

Our fathers tell of Noah and the ark, And also tell of s.h.i.+nar, and the time Of the dispersal. It is not enough To come with empty declamation, come With plat.i.tudes of love, and softened terms Of parenthood, and then to dash it all-- The yearning love of children, to the earth, By words that are icicled up from death: 'Ask not to look upon my face again, Ye cannot look and live.'

"Shame! shame on the pretender thus to bring Your expectations to the pitch of pain, The summit of your hope, where, to move on Is only to descent and sorrow; thus To multiply his attributes of good, And to describe a G.o.d so like the true, The ever s.h.i.+ning Sun, and then deny The precious boon of sight; what mockery!

When there he stands, (eternity, as young,) The broad, full s.h.i.+ning orb, to look upon; The ever radiant Arbiter of earth, The great 'I am' of love; the very soul Of tenderness; rising every morn To kiss his sleeping children from their beds, Enwrapping them, with all his piercing warmth; Wooing the fragrant flowers from the earth, And warming all existences to life.

"How can the soul be blind, when such a pledge Stands in eternal witness of its love?

The very rocks would break their raptured trance, If man find not his voice in fervent praise.

How do the waters mirror up his face!

And tremble into waves at his advance.

The universe goes laughing into life Each morn at his approach, and all the world Forgets its wakefulness, when the tired wing Of day is folded, and himself withdraws

"To teach us faith in him till he return; Thus every night his promise, and each morn His gracious fulfillment, filling the year With ripened sheaves of his remembrances.

"We measure power by our necessities; Let him forget the dawning of one day, Or leave us through the circle of one moon, (Which were the same to him but for his love,) By what conception would we feel our loss?

While yet the year is young, we scatter seed, And wait his fervid rays to fructify.

The trees put forth their bloom, that his embrace May ripen into fruit; and not a growth But climbs his rays to full development.

When Nature points with her ten thousand hands To him, the almighty framer of it all, Shall man forget his duty and fly off On the unnumbered tangents of the brain?

Rather let break our voices in his praise, And let each human soul, be safely borne, Back to his many-chambered paradise.

"Down on his rays man rode into the world, And if we wander not, the same broad path Is open for our exit; there is room In his broad campus for the royal race.

Our bodies are of dust, and will return; Only the vital spark, the s.h.i.+ning way

"Ere traversed; and that alone goes back To join the maker in the increate, The golden chambers of eternal light.

Look on these eyes! have they not more than Earth In their deep glance? I know whereof I speak; For I was led, in trancehood to the sun, And in his very chambers have I walked, And at his very throne have I bent down To praise him; mult.i.tudes were there, who knelt As I did kneel, in rapturehood and prayer.

"High in the midst, sole source of life and light, The glowing center of the s.h.i.+ning orb Sat the unchanging G.o.d; his face was that Of manhood magnified; upon his cheek Was more than woman's beauty deified.

O! once to look and live, is all the soul, Though it be triply strengthened, can endure, Till it do pa.s.s from this clay tenement Into the morrow of the upper world; But we may now and always climb the rays That spring from his own countenance, and see The reflex of his face; but of his form, But little can be printed on our sight.

Enough, to know he lives, and is our life, And every morning he doth search us out, And lift the burden from our heavy lids, That we may rise with him and to our tasks!

"Shall we be hushed, when every bird and flower Doth herald his approach? Convolvulus Waits for his coming with its lips apart, And Philomela will not close his note, Till he do answer with his smiling face; Thus the whole earth resolvent into song Waits for his footsteps--how can we be dumb!

"There was a song Which flowed, untutored, from the lips of love, The ransomed ones that knelt before his throne, No earthly tongues its echo could repeat, So much there was of love, so much of joy, So much of tenderness and innocence; For they were without guile, and not a word But breathed of faith, dependency and peace.

It praised him for his sufference of earth, That he did bear its sin, yet did not smite; And only once, in anger, hid his face, And oped the heavens, to wash out its filth; Yet, with his fervent rays, drank up the flood, And set his bow a witness that again Never should earth be flooded, while the years Melt into centuries, till the whole race, With aching hearts and scalding eyes shall come Back to his all-embracing fatherhood.

"They thanked him for his witness-watch of man, That time and time, his face was partly hid, "To show the hazard of our wandering steps, That in the early, and the latter rain, He wept for our refreshment, till his tears Shut out his fervent glances from our eyes; And though he mourned our strangerhood of him, Yet would he teach us that in smiles and tears Are we begotten, and our lives are lost If we find not the blessings that are hid Beneath the rainbow tints of sorrowing.

"Thus much, and more, that I will not essay; But I was led through fields and garden walks, And ornate grandeur, which the earth affords Nor pattern nor approach; and though the mind Be forced to utmost tension, it cannot Encompa.s.s the bewilderment of sight.

Since my return, I cannot cast it off, It lingers with me like some raptured dream, And in my eyes and on my face is drawn The print of its unspeakable surmount; And I would call it dream, if I had not A talisman, that tells me of its truth.

An angel led me to the central throne, An angel led me back to consciousness; But ere he pa.s.sed the confines of the sun, He handed me a clear, transparent gem, And called me: 'Uri, thus it shall be said: The very G.o.d commands that it be done;

"'Uri, my light, my fire upon the earth, Shall build again my altars and restore With his own hand, the priesthood of the sun.

I will a hundredfold return the scorn Of Mizraim on himself, for his neglect; And from the sons of Lud I will raise up A kingdom that shall s.h.i.+ne in righteousness.'

"This said, he handed me the talisman; Which, when our altars shall have been prepared, And laden with the choicest of our flock, Shall claim the pledge of the eternal one, With fire from his own courts to burn it up.

"I can not say how long, or short a time, I lingered thus entranced; I only know I waked to find it real. The precious gem Is proof of disenchantment; it is here.

I lay no claim on priesthood, but have told The plain, unc.u.mbered truth; when I did fall, p.r.o.ne to the earth in trance, I had no thought, Of what would come of it; you have it all.

I have the stone, and we will test its power.

If yonder priest, with his enshrouded myth, Desires to measure lances with the sun, Then we will each build altars to our G.o.ds, And he that first draws fire from any source, Not of the earth, shall claim the forfeiture Of all the other's tenantry to teach.

"I may have said too much; I can not more Than leave the rest with G.o.d, the changeless one, The bright, all-s.h.i.+ning universe of love, The unfailing source, the broad, unvarying stream, The very oceanhood of deity."

He ceased; and Kohen, rising to his feet, Gave back the challenge eagerly; as might The athlete spring his ready foe to meet; His, was the conscious power of fearless right: "Let him lift up his altars to the sun, And I will call upon the Uncreate, The hand, that shaped it from chaotic void, The face, whose look first taught it how to smile.

He may call first, that it may vantage him; But other than the earth can no man bring, Fire from the distant realms, except it be From G.o.d, Creator of the sun, the moon and stars.

I am content that he do cry his G.o.d, Till he be hoa.r.s.e with hardihood of prayer, This day shall judge between us and the right, And ye shall see the bare arm of the Lord."

The crowd, impatient of his words, did shout In Uri's acclamation; as the sun, Full-faced and warm, gave back his witnesshood; His ready conquest had been well begun.

How few there be, who see beyond their sight!

Even in our day of peculence and power, The horizon of man has been his might, Beyond his ready reach he pa.s.ses into night; The world is bounded by its present hour.

No marvel that old Uri swept the field; His snare was baited for their ready sense, No effort theirs, a pleasure but to yield; Theirs but the open book, to them unsealed; They felt no weight of future recompense; And so they shouted, high and loud, his praise, 'Till he recalled them, with his magic voice: "Old Kohen seems in earnest; let us raise Our altars quickly, that we may rejoice This day, in our great father's warm embrace, That we may look unblus.h.i.+ng in his face And call his fervent rays to their full test Ere he shall draw the curtain in the west."